Watching parents sleep…
October 30th, 2008 by freakyinaWas reading an article in The New Paper. The title was “Have you watched your parents sleep?”. And i quote..” Have you watched your parents while they are asleep? Your father’s body, once big and strong but now, the big is withered and the strong is weaker…..or how about your mom, whose soft hands once cuddled and held you close when you were a baby. Now those hands are dry and rough, bearing evidence of the challenges she faced just for us.” (unquote) I once, sort of shared the same sentiments wif the writer, I wanted my parents to always be wif me n never grow old. I didn’t think that either one of them will leave me…just as yet. At least wait till things got better for me in life, grabbed my goals n settle myself etc. Then they can slowly age and I will then hv the means to take care of them till their last breath. Well…guess what. It came too soon.
Dad passed away on 25th Dec 2006. What a blow. I wished that I had seen my dad when he was asleep. Maybe I would have realised that he wasn’t the young and energetic person he used to be, his belly got bigger, walking long distances left him breathless and his mullet hair still turned grey despite attempts to make it black. But his style was still there though..ever so charming wif his “tacky” sense of dressing (think colored shades n pink track pants) and his excessive perfume spraying. Don’t ask me..that’s my dad. And the saddest part was that I didn’t get to say goodbye to him coz he passed away overseas. What returned was his body, he was asleep but this was to be forever. *sigh*
Next, came mom. My mother was considered the ’sole breadwinner’ of the family after father retired. My mother was a businesswoman in her own right. Sold everything from vases to food. We even did courier service and collected newspapers and tin cans. Throughout those times, she thought me a thing or two about life. Although there were the usual rants about how hard life is and all, she never stop doing work. In fact, profits from selling keropok and our foodstall were what that put me through school and earned my degree. Salute to mum.
Mum, like me is a light sleeper. I remember being woken up by her frequent visits to the toilet at nite. After that I will have trouble going back to sleep. So I will toss and turn and often see if my mum is also asleep. From where I sleep, I can only see her legs. Shifting her leg left and right is an indication that she was not asleep. It became a habit. I was lucky that that habit played a part in saving mum’s life.
It was ard 230am on the 13th of January 2008. I couldn’t sleep. So i did my usual tossing and turning. I saw mum’s legs but they weren’t shifting left and right as usual. Instead it was shaking violently. I called out to mum but she didn’t respond. I got up n check and there was mum, facing down, she seemed to not be able to move the left side of her body, her mouth drooping with saliva. She had a massive stroke. That was the beginning of challenging phases. Hospital, ICU, life and death decisions, therapy and recovery. Shower her, feed her and transfer her to her wheelchair and bed. A woman who use to do things independently, is now very dependant on me. Now, there she is, sleeping on her bed wif a dent on her head ( a result of operation, they took out part of her skull) and left side still paralysed. So different from the last time I remember her to be…With dad gone and mum paralysed, my ‘fairytale’ life just suffered its first few humps. More to come I guess.
So yeah..maybe you should see your parents sleep…(as crazy as it sounds)
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