The Final Moments

This entry was drafted on May 18, 2005. It was never finished and nearly forgotten until I chanced upon it today whilst doing some housekeeping on the blog. I decided to complete this entry with what I could recall and with some thoughts two years after her passing — before they fade into oblivion.

It seemed like just another day. The monotone of office life was only broken with a somewhat joyous celebration of one of the Staff Officer’s belated birthday, which culminated in a treat for morning’s tea break. There were smiles, there were laughter, there were nonsensical banters. A message that streamed into my handphone moments after would change everything — for me, at least.

It seemed like just another day. The monotone of office life was only broken with a somewhat joyous celebration of one of the Staff Officer’s belated birthday, which culminated in a treat for morning’s tea break. There were smiles, there were laughter, there were nonsensical banters.

A message that streamed into my handphone moments after would change everything — for me, at least.

“Can you come down now? Aunt is passing away,” the message from my brother read.

My aunt is a regular patron of the hospital for the past 41 years of her life. When we think of 41 years, it can be such an agonisingly long time. I, for one, cannot imagine what will happen in 41 years time, nor am I even half way through 41 years of life time (edit: I am, now).

The mere thought of another year and three months to go in NS was often enough cause to send me cursing and swearing about life. But my aunt, despite being tormented by the effects of congenital Ventricular Septal Defect, has never muttered the words “life sucks” so callously like I do.

Like all patients in that ward, she slept in a dimly lit room with glass doors. Most patients in the ward were prescribed with the instructions “C.R.I.B.”, or complete rest in bed. I wondered if that was some sort of euphemism since most patients did not seem like they could be anywhere else but on the bed.

On both sides of her were medical equipment and monitors charting her heartbeat and respiration. Although she was connected to one such device by a tube of considerable thickness into her mouth, everyone that stood beside her bed knew she trod a fine line between life and death.

Far from being tranquil, the silence was frequently punctuated with beeps of the very devices now sustaining her life; but the most obnoxious of them all was the ventilator that every so often jolted her with every passage of air.

The cacophony from the cold, dreary equipment still lived deep within me, as I were to be reminded of in a dream much later but not too long ago. Music and even noise it seems, have a way of sending one back through memories to a place or time that words can hardly describe.

Not too long after the doctor stopped the devices sustaining her life, we began to wonder if the decision was one that we should, or could, make. Not only did she continue to live despite the removal of those devices, she began to show some positive signs of recovery.

The devices were restored and a dialysis ordered on standby, though it was still contingent on whether her blood pressure would eventually allow for one.

She never eventually managed to obtain a dialysis.

I’m sure most of our parents would have at some point of time in our lives made comparisons between the “fortunate us” and the “less fortunate”. Some may be a little far-fetched, some a little too foreign for us to empathise with.

For one, I never really believe in comparisons between “their time” and “our time”, for life would have stagnated if they are all the same. Kids don’t buy stories about “the starving African kid” and how they should finish the food on their plates, because they simply don’t understand starvation.

Some values, however, are shared universally by humanity and change little with the passing of time.

Probably a week or so ago, my younger brother, who suffers from somewhat chronic motion sickness, was complaining about his discomfort on a journey back home.

“Why am I living to go through all these suffering?” he exclaimed in mandarin a phrase not too unfamiliar in Chinese soap operas.

“What suffering? Instead of appreciating what you have in life — a healthy body amongst others — you bemoan at the slightest discomfort and cheapen the value of life! Think of aunt who struggled to live on despite all that she went through!” I lashed out almost immediately — and I felt ashamed for him.

The moral of this anecdote is not so much for us to take heart in that no matter how bad things are, there are always someone worse off than us — but one that hopes we can learn from those seemingly less fortunate than us.