Good Friday

It is Good Friday today, a religious holiday observed by Christians all over the world to commemorate the death of Jesus at Calvary. 

In all our years together, Jenny made sure we attended the late afternoon Good Friday mass in church.  We would dine out after mass. And always at a vegetarian restaurant. This obligatory abstention from meat was a welcomed change and few of us griped about the forced restriction, decreed by Mum.  After all it was only for a day in the year.

But for this GF holiday, the first after her passing on, without her heralding and rallying call to attend mass, our strength in faith was put to a test. We failed, needless to speak. Our eldest, W had whole day work assignments, whilst daughter C is overseas on an exchange programme, so the both had no lame excuses. But youngest daughter K and I had no reasons for missing.  

But guess what? We overslept for our afternoon siesta. We could have rushed off and still make it for the tail-end of the service but it was pointless to go so late. All said and to be honest, it was a pathetic and half-hearted attempt to fulfil this obligatory requirement to begin with.

Jenny would have been much disappointed if she had known how slack we were.

I awoke from my afternoon slumber, dazed and pricked with guilt, though it was not for fear of any divine punishment from above. I had once again failed to fulfil Jenny’s wishes.  That the family continue with their spiritual growth, even as she is no longer there to lead the way. This would be her unspoken bidding.

All the years I had known her, Jenny had been steadfast and uncompromising in her faith.  She rarely missed each weekend mass. During our courtship days, many of our weekend dates include attending mass together. Me, the uninitiated disbeliever, turning willing participant just so I could continue dating her. Truth be told, after we got married, I gave her all the support she needed to build a Catholic home for our family. We continued our association with the church community, mustering and raising up the kids to likewise walk the path, marshalling them to catechism classes for their weekly religious indoctrination.

But I now wonder if all that effort is going to waste. And I felt largely responsible. My agnostic influence appear to be undoing Jenny’s hard work, now that she is not here to assert herself.

Late as we were, K and I made our way to church. The plan was to drop by her niche. And in doing so, I could perhaps assuage some residue of the guilt gnawing me. I could at least say that I came by the church on this supposedly holy day of the year.  

We picked up a small stalk of flower before entering the columbarium. A purple carnation to adorn her niche.  If Jenny was looking down at us from heaven she would be frowning. A pitiful attempt to appease her for our plain laziness and irreverence for missing this obligation that is so significant for all devoted Catholics. “A real shame. I don’t know what to say”, I could almost hear her complaining.

But fortunately or unfortunately, I do not believe in the afterlife. It is just the Jenny I remember talking to me. The one kept intact within that is now troubling me. It was supposed to be a simple thing to do, to make sure we get our butts to church. An easy obligation to fulfil. But we flopped.

But as I reflected, how long could I persist with this charade? The kids are grown. They can think for themselves. As they should be.

“I feel so sad for Mum that after all her hard work, it seems to have gone to waste if you guys could not continue practising the faith. And I think I am to blame. I am such a let-down for her”

I could not help confessing to my daughter K, as we drove off to church. That my non-exemplary conduct was spiritually stifling and a bad influence in their catholic upbringing. She took a while to respond but when she did, her reply was more sanguine.

“Dad, don’t blame yourself. And all the years spent teaching us and attending Cat classes are not wasted. I am pretty sure we would not be who we are today with a clear sense of right and wrong if not for all the Sunday school we attended. Mum’s hard work is definitely paying off”.

Could this be the start of a total collapse in their religious future? That my kids will soon be joining the hordes of “lapsed Catholics?” I hope not. I married a woman who was strong and steadfast in her faith. It mattered little that I am unable to share the same beliefs. But as I had explained umpteen times to Jenny, faith in God and the unseen are matters of the heart. They are personal and should not be falsified. God if he exists, reveals himself in different ways to different people.

And my daughter spoke beyond the wisdom of her 18 years.  She was at least truthful even as she skirted around the issue of religious commitment.

The kids have always been our little gems and as I had shared with all the friends and relatives who came for Jenny’s funeral, when I delivered her eulogy, they are Jenny’s greatest gifts to me.  She bore all three through normal birth, nurtured them through the schooling years and sacrificed so much of her time to shape them to who they are today.  I see her attributes glowing in all of them – generous and kind, cheerful and positive-minded. 

She has left me for good. But in leaving, she has also left behind her greatest blessings for me. In the form of my three kids, each so different in character and personality, but yet all three are splitting replicas of her.  Even as they have minds of their own.

Working blues

Today I raised my voice to my boss. I might have overstepped my boundaries. Showing insolence even. But my patience was ground thin.

I had earlier reported to my higher management that some of our female students were being harassed by a male student intruding into our campus premises from a neighbouring institution. After careful reviews of CCTV footages, combined with the students’ testimonies fielded, a pattern of behaviour for this male stalker was emerging quite clearly.  He was clearly preying on some of our female students. At best he had problems calming his raging hormones to put them in check or at worse he was a sexual predator on the prowl and a pervert to the core.

But I failed to convince my boss that he posed imminent threat to the female population in our campus.  And that my decision to lodge a police report was the right thing to do. Instead I got reproached for over-reacting and mindlessly jeopardising the good relationship with our neighbouring institution. I was irked that he had not even requested to view the video footages for himself but was quick to adjudge that there was not enough ill-intent to warrant police action.

I voiced out my disagreement, perhaps too strongly.  In a blink of an eye, he turned beetroot red. That familiar hot flush on his face that betrays his ability to accept further divergence in views. Very obviously, my argument had fallen flat. I was instead getting on his goat.

I trudged back to my office, feeling downcasted and frustrated. A police report is what any responsible citizen should lodge if he or she had witnessed suspicious behaviour that smells of criminal intent. What more for an educational institution purportedly putting the safety and security of its students at the highest priority? Let the police carry out their investigation. That was all I was pushing for.

I spent the remaining part of my work day in a moody daze.

Times like this I wonder why I even bother to slog on with my job. Money-wise, with prudent living I am in good stead. But I wonder too if without such work issues to deal with, how would I deal with all that time on hand? Will I feel empowered, being independent to decide how I should spend my time. Or would I feel worthless and deflated? An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Depression could fester.

I knocked off from work with the usual dark clouds hovering above. They are now my constant companions. Returning home to the sadness that is now a permanent fixture in my life. Wretchedness of life without my other half. I replay again as I did so many times since she had died. How was life with her like? I had her by my side for so many years and yet all this time together seemed so long ago. I had to struggle to recreate the memories. What I would do if I could just relive a single day of those 30 years, now bygone and all dried up.

Strange that back home I could detach myself so effortlessly from the troubles of the day at work. Blame it on my widower’s frame of mind, all soaked in grief. Surely, all other setbacks are like insignificant blips? Like miniscule molehills? Not least, a boss who does not appreciate my care for the welfare and safety of my students.

Accepting that she is forever gone

Acceptance. I am quite sure I have reached that phase. Grief counsellors would say that I have made significant “progress”. I have mixed views on that. But undeniably, surely, though with great reluctance I have to admit to accepting the hard fact that I have lost her.  Forever and ever.

These days I do not dwell too much anymore on what it would be like if she is still with me. Because I have been slam-dunked into this new reality where she is not a physical part of anymore. She is now but traces of a memory. A visage that my confused mind with its high propensity for self-delusion, keep planting everywhere. Especially so when I am at home. I “see” her – reclining against her favourite sofa, brushing past me as I mount the stairs or lying still beside me on my now awkwardly oversized bed.

But the trickery of these awful mind-games betray its transcendence. They remind me instead that she is gone for good.

So I wake up each day, muttering to myself. Make the best of the new day. Live the day for her. Because she wanted so much to live on, though alas, could not.

It is now routine. I have truly accepted her passing on. Like it or not, this new world is now the “new normal” for me. Empty and flat as it may feel.

I am also mindful that it has been a rather long hiatus since my last posting. An explanation might be in order. It may seem like my writing has fallen off a cliff of sorts.

I could offer excuses. After all, the “new normal” has seen more of my time packed with all kinds of activities, sometimes leaving me all bushed out. I had spent more of my free time outdoors, seeking out new jogging trails, trekking up and down Bukit Timah hill, which pathetically, at 160m is the tallest hill feature in our small island state and keeping myself as trim and fit as my strained sinews and withering body would permit. I received frequent invites for badminton meet-ups, open mic jamming sessions on Friday nights and dinner meetings with old colleagues.

But what kept my fingers from hitting the keyboard was neither fatigue nor lack of time. I was seriously having second thoughts of penning my emotive state.

Not since I started the blog to chronicle at least in parts my journey of grief, have I ever been so rattled with self-doubt. I had long hard thoughts.  What was I trying to prove? Are my postings at all helpful to the bereaved? To inspire them to rise above the rut? Fat chance on that. To the non-bereaved, I might have written enough to garner some sympathy but woe would be me, if pity was the object of my effort.

The entire writing endeavour was meant to be a form of catharsis, to release and re-channel my inner pain. But the words of CS Lewis rang again inside my head - "Aren't all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?"

So my writing hit a wall. I came close to deserting my journal.

But like a faithful old friend, this old site came calling me back. I would never have the heart to close it down. The words might run dry and some day it probably would, but what little I have after my terrible loss, I will hold fast to. Along with the grief I am now left with. Because grief is the product of my love for her. And my love for her does not change with her passing. My lovely Jenny whom I will always hold dear in my heart.

So this is what acceptance means. I will spend the better part of each day getting the chores done. In the office, decisions on this and that. Issues to resolve, glitches to smoothen out, bruises to balm and knots to unstitch. After years of toil and toll, there is little I have not encountered in the education scene that I cannot say “been there, done that”.   Or at home, mail to sort out, food supplies to stock up on, a cat to pat and feed.

But now for these last 335 days since she had left me, there is but one constant. Busy or exciting the day may have unfolded, I return each night to a life without her.  And that feeling of hollowness and emptiness. I feel weak, afraid, lost and lonely.  Accept her non-existence completely and totally. But those feelings are always there. A constant companion.