Replaying again, our cancer journey

Drink up your Prosure, dear. You can’t afford to lose any more weight.

She gave a reluctant nod and took hold of the mug from me, slowly stirring the warm lumpy liquid to get a more even mix. She hated the drink. It tasted like milk blended with rotten fish.  But still it annoyed me when she squirmed to show her disdain for it.

Jenny had lost too much weight. And I was deeply worried.  Her usual 45 kilo petite figure had whittled down to a pitiful 35 kilo and she looked gaunt and frail to the bone.  Sometimes the worry turned to panic, and I got angry with her for daring to be fussy with the Prosure consumption.  Her oncologist had prescribed the distasteful beverage for mandatory consumption. Don’t treat it like it is food, treat it as medicine.  That was his strict instruction. The Prosure was formulated to help cancer patients prevent weight loss. That was how it was also touted in the brochures.

Without much else to turn to, we placed a lot of hope on that powdery formulation. Jenny consumed copious amount of the yucky stuff. And we monitored and recorded her daily consumption. I often have to cajole and coax her, reminding and nagging her even just so she would not fall short of the recommended intake.

Looking back, it is hard to say if she could have been worse off without it. We could never be sure. But tough as the Prosure regime was it gave us at least some form of assurance that her body was receiving the nutrition needed to keep her going.

In hindsight now, we were of course gullible to the core.  Cancer was a tougher adversary than can be fought with mere diet plans.

And with stomach cancer, Jenny had a really bad deal. Is there another cancer that could have been kinder to her? Probably not, but as far as quality of life goes, stomach cancer is at the bottom of the pits. Her stomach felt tight and bloated a lot of the time. Eating became a dreadful chore. And then there is the nausea induced by the brutal chemotherapy, causing her to puke whatever little she could consume.

The chemo treatment played further havoc on her already fragile state. Pumping chemo drugs into the body is akin to unleashing large scale area bombardment to destroy a few hidden terrorist elements, using a war scenario analogy.  The toxins destroyed a lot of good cells while trying to hunt down the evil cancerous cells. The oncologist had planned for 8 chemo cycles but by the time the 2^nd cycle was due, Jenny was already feeling the strain. She was constantly tired and had incessant bouts of diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting much of the little food she could consume. Ulcers ruptured in her mouth and blistered her gullet making swallowing near impossible. She was a pale shadow of her former self. And I felt utterly helpless watching her suffer.

Because her eating capacity is so limited, her diet had to be carefully selective.  Bird’ nest concentrate, ABC fruit mix, double-boiled chicken soup and other brews of the highest nutrition were regular features of her daily diet. 

But Prosure and high nutrition diet aside, in truth, we were running on empty.  The chemo turned out to be ineffective and even debilitating and Jenny’s condition eventually deteriorated.

It is hard for me to suppress recycling this dreadful episode of the final chapter of our lives together. She, undergoing the harrowing treatment and gradually succumbing to the disease. And me, as the failed and incompetent care-giver. 

I am tempted at times to ask myself a few “what-ifs”.  What if we had taken advice from others who had cautioned us to not go the chemo route and place so much trust on modern medicine?  What if we had chosen alternative medicine? Would Jenny still be alive?

It is a futile mind game that leads to nowhere.

And what if I now contract cancer?  The chances are not small. Call it the bane of modern society and lifestyles. Statistically in our country it is known that 1 out of 3 to 4 persons would at some point in their lives be stricken with the disease. Will I then resort to chemo treatment also? And allow the toxic substances course through my veins and take its brutal toll, making me sicker than I should be? Frankly, I am not sure.

We placed a lot of faith in our oncologist. With each visit, he gave us a lot of hope and confidence.  It all proved to be very misplaced.  On hindsight, he was really putting a false front.  Yes, he oozed confidence and injected a sure-footed sense of optimism in all his diagnoses. I suppose he was well trained to take such an approach, in that respect. It made sound business sense also.  But in truth he was never ever sure. Jenny was like many of his other patients, cash cows for the milking. Another life specimen for experimenting, to aid his own learning and add to his armoury of knowledge and experience. It is learning that is abundantly paid for by our insurance money and finally at the expense of my beloved Jenny’s life.

Cancer has stopped short Jenny’s life and journeying alongside her and watching her suffer each day has severely dented my confidence in the medical profession. But I do not feel bitter. Just a feeling of acceptance.  I am resigned to accept the consequences of our choice and decision of entrusting her life completely in the hands of our doctors. We do not blame ourselves also, because how would we have known better? We were faced with a case of Hobson’s choice. Cancer in reality is a terribly formidable disease to overcome. And fourth stage cancer is a death sentence with almost no further avenues of revocability.

Jenny, I feel so sad each time I replay how your life had wound down. But the sad truth I suppose is that everybody has to die. One day at some point in time. It is the consequence of being mortal. And we have very little control on how and when this would happen. So with that, rest well and rest easy.

Fazed by the haze

Dearest Jenny

This week, the 24^th since your tragic demise, went pretty well for me.  But it would have been better if not for that sickening blanket of smoggy haze that covered  all of our island.

The whole country is soaked in a soup of smoky haze, thanks to our neighbours
 

Honey, you are more than familiar with the acrid burning smell that invades our nostrils each year.  We have this nasty haze, an unwanted gift from an unremorseful neighbour down south.  Blame it also on our own bad fortunes with wind directions. Only that this time, the pall of misty gloom seems to hang around for the longest time.  

As before, we pray for rain. We pray for shift in the winds. We pray for our stupid neighbours to finally wake up to their senses and really do something about the freaking forest fires. But that last prayer is probably the hardest to get answered.

Our Volleyball on Sands Meetup group, which I have faithfully been attending each Tuesday evening for the last 5 weeks, had to be cancelled this week. A little smog would not kill anyone but the PSI reading was at hazardous levels. So you would be pleased that volleyball mania took a back-seat and sanity prevailed. The organiser reluctantly called off the session and off-line, we pray for clearer skies next week. 

Such a shame as I was really enjoying these V-ball meet-ups. You would not be impressed for sure as surely you would not approve of such risky indulgences on my part, at my age. Yes, Honey I haven’t quite realised my age and may have to learn a painful way!

Rest of the work week cruised along smoothly enough. Unlike most other weeks, I could not find time for my solitary lunch getaways. There were several lunch meetings with various people.

On Tuesday, I had arranged lunch with an ex-colleague.  She apparently did not know about your passing on. When she saw your picture displayed in my car digital dashboard, the one with the Lake District in the backdrop, she commented how happy you would be that I had put up your picture. Indeed you would. But I had to break the news to her about your passing on and immediately felt bad for her. For feeling bad to be ignorant about my terrible loss. But like tit for tat, she too broke the news to me. She had only 2 months ago, just recovered from cancer treatment herself. I did not know that. And only moments ago, when she first got into the car I had commented on her new hair-do and how well it suited her.  I felt then of being a real dork of sorts.  I would need to have a better eye to tell fake hair from real. But as you know me, Honey I am the quintessential dope at such things, especially on noticing about women’s subtle appearances.  You have registered your complaints often enough. 

Fortunately it was a short drive from her workplace to the restaurant.  And the rest of lunch went well enough for us. We caught up with on family and work, reminiscing how we suffered under the torments of our common ex-boss.  We offered each other words of encouragement and promised to keep in touch.

On Thursday evening, I attended my second Open Mic Meetup at the Laffios restaurant at Beach Road. How I wished I could bring you there, like some of the lucky husbands who brought their wives along. At least then I could try to impress you like they did for their spouses.

That's me on the guitar.

This second group had a few more older people, so I blended in better.  I brought my trusted guitar and treated my audience to U2’s “All I want is you”.  LOL, did I say “treated”?  Well it was a decent enough performance I think. No hitches. This song carries a melancholic tune but that was not the reason I chose it. With my limited vocal range, it was one of the easiest of U2 songs to sing and play on the guitar. It was a song I picked up only weeks ago so you have definitely not heard me sing that in the past. Such a pity.  Because All I Want is You. Really.

The meetup groupies urged me for a second song and I decided on “Eleanor Rigby”. You have heard me warbled that countless times, my favourite Beatles hit.  I thought I had all the lyrics permanently ingrained into my head. What a lousy time for mental blocks and I stumbled at various parts. It was embarrassing but my polite and stout-hearted audience applauded nonetheless. Thankfully, Paul McCartney wrote only three short verses to sing about this enigmatic lady and her forlorn loveless life. I made a mental note of practising harder the next time I plan on attending these Meetups again.

On Friday, all the divisional heads, about 20 of us, got together for our monthly “culture chat” meetings.  These regular chat meetings allow us to gel better so we won't batter each other so much over work. After gobbling up our DIY popiah meals, we sat, huddled in a circle. The plan for that day was for everyone to share a lesser known secret about ourselves. Expectedly in such situations, no one would be terribly honest to reveal their darkest of secrets. Nor even anything remotely tainted. But we had a ball of a time nevertheless. We gamely teased each other of our past, plain and ordinary as what was freely shared then.  And guess who took a leading role to stir up much of the mirth and laughter? Yours truly was voted the funniest person at the end of the session.  Perhaps my buoyant mood and cheeky display humour, lame or otherwise, contrasted sharply against how most colleagues usually see me – measured, serious and even solemn at times. So I caught them by surprise. Some even wondered if I was drunk or high on drugs!

But we will remember that chat session as one of our more fun and light-hearted meetings unlike the past dour ones.

Friday evening, I had dinner with my ex-colleague, P.  You know him, he took over my old job. We went to the Spruce restaurant, at the old abandoned fire station. You had previously ate at the restaurant with the kids, but without me as I could recall. It was the first time since I met P since your funeral wake, which he attended with his British wife.  I shared with him how difficult it has been coping with life without you.  P offered to accompany me for holiday overseas but I reminded him of his busy schedule. He should not sacrifice precious recreation time with family for my own sorry sake.  

Meanwhile through the week, the dreaded haze hung on. Like a curse that refuse to be exonerated.  Come Saturday morning, despite the PSI readings hovering at unhealthy range, I was hell-bent to pound the tracks. I put on my running shoes and headed off to MacRitchie.  But while driving through the smoky pall I came to my senses. I should not put my fragile health at risk. With every gasp of putrid air, I would be clogging my lungs with all kinds of poisonous particulates. So I quickly changed my mind about the outdoor run and swung over to my Dover office. To our Staff Gym, using the facility for the first time ever. The tread-mill gave me the work-out I needed but not the satisfaction.  I felt like a hamster. All that frantic scurrying but going nowhere. Damned haze!

But Saturday evening finished on a high note. I spent the evening with your dear family. Yes, your mum and dad (on wheelchair), sister and brothers were all there.  We got together at your brother’s condo function room for wine and finger food. Yes, I went alone as expected. Again the kids all have plans of their own. But the closeness of your family was endearing and heart-warming as usual. Again, I pictured you seated between your siblings and their kids, looking ever so relaxed and at ease. It nearly brought tears to my eyes. But I held back to stay buoyant so I would not dampen the mood. We talked about the recent elections. Yes, your siblings were still sympathetic to the opposition as you always were. We talked about the haze, work and everything. But we did not talk very much about you. But worry not, Honey, they all hold you dear in their hearts. I am totally convinced of that unshakeable fact.

I should also mention that on Wednesday I spent much of the evening till late at the Hospital where you passed on. A colleague was seriously ill and was admitted into the A&E for treatment and observation. I was there with a few other colleagues to keep watch. He recovered well enough and was discharged at the end. But it was the first time I had stepped back into the Hospital. I reminded myself not to be swamped with emotions. I cannot say for sure how I would feel if I have to visit the very ward and the bed where you lived your last moments. That spot would trigger a tsunami of pain within me for sure.

So this whole week has been rather packed for me. A lot of highs and some lows. I am sure you are pleased that I am not stuck in pits of sorrow and self-pity. But all these past-times as I have said are merely distractions. Necessary as they are for me to go on with life.

I keep you close to my heart as you know I would. Always, wherever I go and whatever I do. And there's nothing hazy about that.

Love you, Honey as always,

Hubby

 

Bangkok, and in the arms of another woman

He couldn’t believe what he had heard. So I repeated myself, that this would be my very first trip to Bangkok. 

My long-time friend from back in college days, EL and his wife had settled in Bangkok some ten years ago. After countless promises that I would visit, I finally found myself there, together with my youngest daughter K. We were on a short four day holiday. He found it incredulous that I had never before set foot on this sprawling mega-polis, the capital city of Thailand, just over two hours of flight time from our island city. So near and yet for me, so far.

Jaw-dropping but it's true. Jenny and I, well-travelled as we were, have never once visited this city, at least together.

So what made me go this time?

Well I had annual leave to clear. And much in need of a break from work also. Still, it took a lot of dawdling on my part to summon the will power to make the flight booking. I could spend my leave at home, or I could fly out for a short trip. With only 4 or 5 days a short getaway holiday destination could be to Siem Reap, to see the famous Ang Kor Wat, or to Penang Island. None of these destinations excited my travelling partner, who would be my youngest daughter K, the only one of my 3 kids free enough to join me. But when I tossed the idea of Bangkok, she went wild with excitement. “Ohh! I love you Dad! II've been dreaming of going there!”. She made no bones about it. Bangkok is a shoppers’ paradise.

For me, this trip was to fulfil my promise of visiting my old friend, EL, a promise I had lost count of making. It was in fact getting to be an embarrassment each time I sheepishly shared with anyone that I had not once been to Bangkok. I have received enough of expressions of shock and awe to tell me that it is about time to break the duck and go.

The City was exactly what I had expected it to be. Colourful, bustling and crowded. Traffic chaotic but the people, gracious and friendly. Why Jenny and I had not visited in our years together was a mystery. 

After all, Jenny would have loved the shopping.  No guessing then on whose genes my daughter K had taken on. She spent a great deal of time at the Platinum shopping complex - two entire buildings, each  with several floors of countless stores selling an infinite range of cheap apparel and other assortments to stoke and satiate the appetite of shopaholics from all over the world.

But I found it tiring and boring. Tonnes of merchandise on display and offer. But not a single item worth parting my cash for. My long-time immunity against impulsive buying held firm. Jenny had long found me a major turn-off when it comes to shopping. Sometimes, she would insist that I should at least buy something and I begrudgingly obliged. But most times she knew that I would be better off planting myself at some coffee joint and burying my face into a book. She could then attack the stores at her own time and liberty.  Without the burden of a dampener like me in tow.



A flurry of sights and colours along the streets of Bangkok
 

So I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time nursing my paperback companion at various cafes that could offer brewed coffee and air-conditioning comfort. Relaxing, the way I like it, while allowing ample time for my daughter to satisfy her shopping needs. We also found time to stroll through the streets together, sampling the street-food offering, one of which was aptly named “gruel”. Surprising it actually tasted quite good.

We even caught a ride on a long river-boat, powered by a bone-rattling motor of immense horsepower that tore us through the Chao Phraya river at terrifying velocity. Fortunately the rapid speed meant that the journey was also a brief one. We ended at the Wat Pho Buddhist temple complex with its gigantic reclining Buddha housed in a building just large enough to shelter it from the elements. My daughter had to don a robe as her dressing was not sufficiently modest by Buddhist standards.

The Wat Pho temple complex was really quite impressive!
 

But the part of this holiday that would be most memorable and one which would have Jenny squirming with discomfort was the Thai massage experience. At the behest of my host, EL and his wife who were members of the Health Land club, we joined them for what I was told, a traditional Thai massage. Two whole hours in the hands of a muscular female Thai masseuse. We (my daughter and my couple friends) were all robed and laid side by side, on mattresses in a single elongated room.  There was much giggling from my daughter.  Understandably, as she was a first timer.

But believe it or not again, this was also my very first time experience of getting a massage! Again, I am not sure if I should be proud of or embarrassed at sharing this little known fact about myself. 



A bone-crushing time in the arms of a muscular female

So for two whole hours lying on a mattress with unaccustomed company, within a dimmed up room, a Siamese woman twisting and contorting my limbs in awkward angles, throwing her body weight to loosen every locked-up joint in my body and stretching every stiffened sinew, I realised that I had not gotten so physically closed to a female ever since Jenny was stricken with illness.  Not that there was any intimacy in this encounter. There was certainly more pain than pleasure for sure.  She was crushing me with all her might whilst I submitted my limp body to be kneaded and crumpled like dough. Resistance was futile. And it would only make the work harder for her

If only Jenny was there to see me being worked on. 

She probably would have insisted that they sent me a male masseuse instead. I would then not have to deal with me being all wrapped up with another woman. I couldn’t even imagine how she would have felt - her dearest hubby getting physical in the arms of another woman! That would be hard for her to process.  But what fun I could derive, seeing her getting all annoyed. She would pretend not to be jealous.  But I would see through her. I rarely got to see her being jealous, during all our years together.  We have always been faithful, never straying from each other.  But for this massage session, at the end I am pretty sure, good sense would prevail. She would be rational enough to know that it was only a massage, Thai style notwithstanding and nothing more personal. She has not lost her beloved husband to another woman for sure.  

So, even as my body was bent and twisted like a piece of dough, my mind was hovering around Jenny. Wondering how she would feel. She would also be going through this massage, right by my side. This experience for us would then be such a rare treat. When it was over, we would have much to share with each other. I would have fancied seeing her getting flustered as she tries to mask her resentment. Me, engulfed within the arms of another female. And right next to her too! I would need to comfort and appease her wounded heart.  A reason to be extra loving.

But sigh, once again I was lost. Lost in wishful thinking.  She was not there with me. Only my daughter and two old time friends to share the experience with.  We said goodbye to our masseuses after handing the tips. Kop Koon Krup. Thanks for the good time.

So first time in Bangkok and my first encounter in getting a full body massage.  Holidays abroad open up the world a little wider, bringing forth new experiences.  A different country, different setting, smells and sound. But for me it is the same. Wherever I emplace myself, without her by my side, it is the same familiar feeling. Empty and incomplete.

  

 

 

Share your heart even if it is broken

This morning, while browsing through the papers my eyes caught the picture of comedian actress, Amy Poehler in the front page of the Recruit section. Head-lined as “Share your heart”, the article featured the entire transcript of her convocation speech for the Harvard College graduating class of 2011.

I read through the article and was impressed. I later did a search and found the link to play the video so I could watch and listen to her speaking.

http://gradspeeches.com/2011/harvard-university/amy-poehler

In my line of work in the education business, I have attended more than my share of graduation events. Ms Poehler’s graduation speech was by far the best that I have heard. She treated her audience with a stream of beautifully crafted personal messages, delivered with humour, great aplomb and well-timed punchlines.

While obviously written for young aspiring graduands, the part that struck some resonance with me was "Continue to share your heart with people even if it has been broken. Don't treat your heart like an action figure wrapped in plastic and never used." 

Tell me about sharing your heart.

Alright, she was probably referring to heartbreaks from crushes or maybe career setbacks that many young aspiring graduates might have gone through. Less of the scale of bereaving a loved one or as in my case, a wonderful spouse of many years.

If I could be so bold as to comment on Ms Poehler’s advice, dipping into my own tragic experience for good measure. I would add that if your heart is truly broken, you would not keep it under wraps. You would have this need and propensity to share, to speak to people and lay bare the pain.

The internet has provided a convenient outlet, which explains the many grief sites I have chanced upon. And I too attempt to share my thoroughly “used” and broken heart, through my regular postings.

But where it comes to sharing in real life, reality presents a few obstacles.

I found that very few people really care or try to understand.

From these past five months of my limited widower experience, I have come to accept that nobody, unless they had suffered similar bereavements, could really fathom the impact of losing a long-time spouse.  More so, most people I know preferred to skirt around the matter. I could sense their discomfort in conversation. But I do not blame them. I think they are anxious and fearful of saying the wrong thing and upset me more. I have lost track of the number of times with various friends, associates and even relatives when I tried to talk about my belated wife, the conversation would get stone-walled or deflected towards something else.  Most people are clueless as to what to say or how to respond. There is no frame of reference to turn to.

But I think the real reason that most people do not really care is because we are basically made that way.  We are biologically programmed to be self-centred. The well-known evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkin in his book entitled, “The Selfish Gene” has expounded that our human race are basically “survival machines, robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes”. Hence, we are “born selfish” out of necessity to keep up our own survival rates.

Or it could be I am getting what I really deserve, after all how much genuine care have I given or shown to the people around me? Instant Karma, as the late great John Lennon has put in song.


More likely it is a little of all of the above.

It is useful for me to put it all in perspective, so I would understand myself and others better. That way I would not harbour any anger or bitterness and learn to deal with coping with the grief largely on my own. After all it is my life and Jenny was my wife, so it is really my burden to bear.  It will be a long and lonely journey, I pretty much know this by now.

I would share my thoroughly shattered heart with anyone who can spare the time to listen and lend a shoulder. 

But then again you would have chores to do and dinner to prepare, so never mind, I will be fine for now…

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

If time is a doctor, then this doctor is a rather poor one. Probably a quack of sorts.


This whole week, I felt like Jenny had just died yesterday. But in fact it has already been 5 months or 154 days to the exact, since she left us.

I have accepted that my grief journey would be like a roller coaster ride. Or some kind of a yo-yo. With all the lows and the highs. But for much of this week the yo-yo cord got overstretched and the spinning disk was stuck at the low end.

Jenny kept popping into my field of view.  Even when I was not looking at her pictures, now ubiquitous features around my domicile and office space.

I suppose absence makes the heart fonder. 

In fact, I recall telling her exactly that.  It was many years back.  Back, when we were tenderly younger, unmarried and amidst the heydays of our courtship together.

I was then a full-time student and residing in the hostel within the university campus, located remotely at the far-end of our island country. We would date only on Saturday evenings, which was all the time I could spare to maintain our relationship. As a mature student at the tail-end of my twenties and on full-pay scholarship, I was under serious pressure to chalk up good grades so all week long I would be too absorbed in my studies to spend time with her. Flunking the course would put me into dire straits. I could not even imagine the consequences. In local terms I became the ever “kiasu” or afraid-to-lose kind of nerdy student.

So a week of classes and relentless mugging was never enough time for me. I was always hard-pressed to complete tortuous piles of tutorials and assignments. Jenny on the other hand would be waiting earnestly  for my phone call to her home or office so we could arrange our week-end rendezvous. Sadly, as a residential student holed up in a remote corner of the island, it was a lot harder if not impossible for her to reach me.  Mobile communication was of course non-existent in those ancient days. For her then, working in an office job, the week must have been agonisingly long.

“But absence makes the heart fonder, dear”, I told her on one of our weekend dates, speaking in as comforting a tone as I could honestly muster.

She was feeling somewhat insecure. And it was plain for me to see as she chose not to hide it. With the campus rife with hordes of warm-blooded female young things in close proximity, I could be easily distracted. And a lot could happen in the course of a week.

“It’s more like out of sight, out of mind”, she replied.

She was clearly unpleased about our frequency of meeting up and how our relationship was panning out ever since I took up the scholarship and started on full-time studies.  Admittedly, I was too wrapped up in 3^rd order differential equations or finite element analyses to be zealously romancing about her.  Or to fool around on campus also.

As it turned out, our love stayed the course, even as over that crucial year after I had embarked on full-time studies, we saw less of each other than what she had wanted.

Come the year-end vacation we received news that the apartment we had applied for was ready for occupation, so shortly after the key collection we tied the knot and got married. No more of that horrid hostel stay for me. I was to complete my following two years of study in our newly acquired abode, a beautiful executive flat with two levels of dwelling space. I was now safe in her arms. Or at arms-length at least.

And from that point we would be always together, build a family, living happily ever after. Or so we wished. Until she got struck by cancer and left me early.

Too early.

And now I could not get her out of my mind even if she is plainly out of sight.
 
So Jenny Dearest, I was right and you were wrong.  Out of sight does not necessarily mean out of mind.  And absence did make the heart grow fonder. How I miss you now.  There is a constant ache inside that I could not shake off. I feel stressed, panicking even whenever it hits me that I will never be able to see you again, much less hold you in my arms or run my fingers through your long flowing hair.

I suppose I have only myself to blame. I have put up enough of her pictures on various parts of the house and my office so every which way I look she is almost always in sight.  My screen-saver pushes out her digital images, a new one every ten seconds whenever the computer goes into a lull. Most of these photographs were taken on our year-end holidays, happy and carefree moments forever locked in time. In the streets of Bali, along the beaches of the Gold Coast and the central town hall in Brussels and Bruges, she struck up her best poses. Smiling radiantly, she had the world at her feet, clueless that those happy days were well numbered. And that for me and the kids, life would soon be a sideway drift.

It is clear that I am not working hard enough on getting her off my mind.

Rooting for the Opposition

Well, the General Elections had concluded with the ruling party (People’s Action Party), sweeping close to 70% of all the votes casted.  Tears for the opposition parties and cheers for the PAP.  They scored a landslide victory that took everyone, even themselves by surprise. But it was the people’s choice. Singaporeans, being pragmatic were going for the tried and tested. 

Jenny would have been dismayed.  All the years I had known her, she had always been rooting for the opposition. During our first election together as a married couple, I recalled her asking me which side I had voted. We were walking back from what was our first trip to the polling station together.

“My vote is secret”, was my polite and discreet reply.

“I knew it – you voted for the PAP.” She then went on about how gutless I was. How I had succumbed to fear by not daring to put in my vote for the opposition, much as I had constantly griped about the parliament being a bunch of “yes-men” and how much we needed an alternative voice. In truth, back in the bad old days, many people, particularly those who were in public service felt compelled to vote for the PAP, not necessary out of conviction but possibly out of fear.  Fear that the identity of each voter could be traceable and woe be to your future if you had made the “wrong” choice.  Real or imagined, the fear was omnipotent.

I never really understood Jenny’s sturdy and faithful disposition for the opposing political parties. Perhaps she was inclined to favour the underdog.  She had complained of the PAP being arrogant, with which I could not disagree.  But for all subsequent elections, I was clear on my choice of lending support for the opposition. The PAP has performed well over the last 50 years in power.  But too much power, I feel is not a good thing. Absolute power corrupts. We need a genuine system of check-and-balance, an alternative voice to probe and question so that policies developed will be sufficiently robust.

So with this and in many previous elections, the opposition got my vote. No more accusations of cowered spinelessness from the wife.

I gave my vote to each new incumbent who had the guts and gumption to stand against the behemoth party.  Even as I knew, like in all elections past, that they would lose. With Jenny’s demise, the opposition is now deprived of one more vote. Not that it would have mattered, as they would have lost anyway, losing big-time too for this round.

Given the rising tide of resurgence for the ruling party, I was glad I gave the opposition my vote. They needed my support more badly to keep the dream alive. One day, slowly but surely, Singapore will have a true multi-party system.  Jenny has not lived long enough to see it and probably I would not too as we do not expect this to happen soon.  But I have at least done my part, which was to cast my vote in support. 

Majulah Singapura.

 

 

Going to the Polls

Today our country go to the polls.  Held on a weekday, instead of a Saturday as in many elections past, some see it as yet another ploy to generate more “feel-good” votes. Cynically, a further boost to the ruling party’s share of votes.

In Singapore, the election season, once every five years, never fails to generate an entire gamut of reactions, from emotionally feverish, to skepticism and dead apathy.

But Jenny would have been thrilled. Not for the chance to vote but for the holiday. I could still remember her grumbling in previous elections. Why can't polling day fall on a week-day instead and allow everyone a day off from work? She was never the typical politically awakened member of the electorate, though she could reserve her most stinging remarks on sloppy-looking politicians who do not fit the bill.

But of course, she is now missing on this election spectacle. And for all future ones to come too.

And if memory served me right, this might be the first time I had also gone voting without her.  In my younger days, it was common for the ruling party to return uncontested.  Over the years, after we got married and on most elections whenever voting were required, we reported to the polling station, always as a couple.

So in the afternoon, together with my oldest two children, now of voting age, we trudged to the nearby polling station to cast our votes. I could not say I felt particularly sad, not having Jenny in tow. Voting was really fuss free. There was not even a queue to allow me to mull over.

But Jenny would certainly have relished this extra day of holiday.  As I had. But whether that could buy her vote for the ruling party would be questionable.

I started the day in fact with an outdoor hike. Together with an old school-mate friend, we trekked into the Tree Top Walk in MacRitchie, taking the shorter route from Venus Drive. It took us less than an hour to walk to the suspension bridge, a free-standing platform, 250 m in length and wide enough for one direction traffic.  This was the first time I had gotten onto the Tree Top Walk, a highlight of the MacRitchie reserve.  Towering above the canopy of trees one gets a bird's eye view of the tropical forest.  But midway on the shaky suspended walkway I found myself feeling queasy. I never had nerves for heights. But I supposed that helped make the walk a more thrilling experience than what it was fashioned to be. No offense to my old buddy trek-mate, but I was quietly wishing that Jenny was my walking companion instead.  She would have much to say when she sees me walking gingerly with both hands grappling the two sides of the bridge as I made my way along the swaying deck of the bridge.

So this is another spot in our tiny island we call home where Jenny had not once stepped foot on.  There are many more for sure as she was not particularly an outdoor person.  I will for sure be making  more of such mental notes as I venture more around the island and discover new and interesting areas that I wished I could also share with Jenny.  This island of less than 720sq km is small but I suppose she could have lived longer to cover more of it.

Could have and should have. Sigh.