A jog in the park

It is Saturday today.

In the past, before Jenny's got cancer-stricken and sadly, eventually passing on, this day of the week would have been much looked forward to over the rest of the week. But with her now missing in my life, the day began like it did for the last 63 days since her passing on, with the usual empty sunken feeling.  I ran through in my mind what is in store for the day – a few little chores to be completed, a visit to a student event in the evening and perhaps time in the afternoon to catch up on my reading.

But an ominous dark cloud hangs heavily overhead to dampen any kind of enthusiasm I can possibly summon to greet the day.

I decided to start the day to catch up on my jogging as what I would do on most uneventful Saturdays and after a light breakfast, set off to drive to a nearby park somewhere.  But once I got onto the expressway, I soon realised that I really have not decided on a particular destination in mind.  This lack of direction would have been uncharacteristic of my old self.  But in recent days, galvanising myself into purposeful action has become increasingly difficult. My mind is too clouded up, weighed down by constant reminders of the loss of my dear wife.  

I wondered aloud if I should stay clear of the parks which Jenny and I had frequented often as my mental state appears to be all primed up to tailspin into another painful dive. 

At the end, I told myself that evading the memories will not be possible, nor healthy.  There are also not many parks or places in this rather tiny island, which we call our home country that we have not visited together before.

So I swung over to Bukit Batok Nature Park, where Jenny and I had walked through umpteen times in the past.  After the jog, as usual I settled onto a well-shaded park bench to recuperate.  The half hour route, at my measured and sluggish pace would have covered about 4km, long enough to get myself all dripping wet with sweat.  Exercise as I was told helps the body secrete chemicals called endorphins which can boost the mood and reduce stress and depression.  This much I could vouch for and I finished the jog feeling more at ease than before.

I checked my email and found that my ex-colleague whom I had recently visited at Perth had sent me an excerpt from a lecture given by Mr Ratan Tata about how one should view life and living.

“..Don’t take life seriously. Life is not meant to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a prepaid card with limited validity.  If we are lucky we may live another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends.  Do we really need to get so worked up?...”

I can’t say those words had me awe-struck with an epiphany, but it did make me ponder if I had reacted too seriously to Jenny’s passing on.   

Journeying with her through the months of cancer treatment and hospital stay has been an emotionally trying and intense experience but I need to put that all behind me.  This weekend is one more weekend drifting away and there is probably not many left for me. Yes, life had dealt me a really nasty blow but I should not be taking life so seriously as Mr Tata had said. 

With that I felt lighter, feeling more at ease and could spend the rest of the day to relax, catching up with my reading and in the evening attended the student art show with my kids and finishing with us enjoying late-night supper. 

I am not sure how long I can hang on to this uplifted feeling as the pain of losing her is unlikely to heal so easily. But for now I will just hang onto it as long as I can.

 

 

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