Falling sick with a mountain to climb

My official trip to the UK finished up rather badly.  For me at least. I suffered one of my deepest fear when on the road – falling sick.

I supposed I could count myself fortunate that I was fit and fine for the first 5 days of the trip, when most of the major meetings and visits were scheduled.  I could have been careless, letting my guard down, either by not hydrating well enough or missing my vitamin supplement for that day. It was towards the Saturday weekend evening when the symptoms started telling their warning signs - aching in my joints and a drastic reduction in appetite. All is not well.

Although most of the trip itinerary was done with, there was still a remaining stint that require my two other travelling colleagues and I to journey up north, cutting diagonally across almost the entire Scotland from Glasgow into the Scottish Highlands and towards a small town called Forres, located close to the North Sea coast and about 320km or a 3-4 hour drive from Glasgow. Weather-wise, we could expect strong winds and chillier temperatures. My weakening body, fresh host to the invading virus now playing havoc in my system, trembled with this unwelcoming news from the weather forecast.

The Saturday night before the long drive up north was an endless series of tosses and turning. My mind was stuck on fight mode, in a perpetual state of delirium, too active to sink into restive dream-state and the sleep my body was craving for, and any success to actually enter into sleep would be quickly frustrated by my lungs exploding in successive staccatos of violent coughing.  My appetite for food was also completely taken down by the intruding aliens. I managed only to nibble part of a banana for my breakfast and drink some hot tea to sooth my throat, bruised by the incessant coughing.

It was fortunate that we had another driver amongst our traveling entourage of 3 persons and she was confident and adept at driving in foreign soil. This was one tender mercy I should not discount. Not many Singaporeans are experienced at overseas driving. That relieved me of the responsibility and allowed me to rest over a larger part of the trip in the back seat of our rented car. A 4 hour journey that require focussed concentration in my current woozy mental state would be precarious.

Once out of Glasgow sub-urban, the Scottish Highlands unfolded itself with picturesque beauty typical of the British countryside but instead of the gentler rolling fields and knolls of the English landscape, towering hills and mountains sweep majestically into the distance. In the foreground, clumps of quaint stone cottages with the occasional small castle or cathedral, surrounded by countless sheep and sometimes cows that dotted the broad expanse of open fields all around told us that traditional farming is still very much alive in this supposedly modern country.  My two travelling companions seated in the front were oozing “oohs” and “ahs” to the pristine beauty of the Scottish glens and countryside.

But I spent most the trip huddled in the back seat, coughing away pathetically and depriving me of restful moments. It was dreadful. But at least I did not have to drive.

The next two days was a struggle. Cold weather with glorious sunshine alternating with flurries of hailstone rain whenever a dark cloud glided overhead.  It was weather I had never seen before. When the long meetings with our partners were finally over and done with I was thankful. I had eaten very little, mostly soup and some bread for each meal and real restful sleep was still escaping me.

The long-haul flight back home promised of better things to come. Back home to warmer weathers and where I could immediately seek medical attention. I hardly ate anything on the flight for fear of throwing up. It was amazing that the business class food menu could boast of an amazing range of dinner options but not a simple bowl of warm vegetable soup. I glanced under the menu section of “Delectables” where passengers could choose a range of snacks in-between meals. Tom Yam noodles. That sounded palatable enough. Instant noodles it may be but I would stomach a few mouthfuls and ingest some of the mildly spicy and hot soup served with it.  The stewardess who took my order was puzzled about my choice but did not query or not try to change my mind.

Out of the airport gates, my boy, W picked me at the arrival pick-up and quickly we were on our way back home. After a quick clean-up I made my way to our neighbourhood clinic. The locum physician on duty prescribed a 5 day course of Augmentin anti-biotics.  It was four days since I caught the virus.  I now wonder if the medical treatment has come a little late. I was virtually fighting the virus on my own for the first 4 days without medication. Now nestled in the comfort of home, with medical leave followed by a long weekend on account of 1^st May being Labour Day, a public holiday I have had plenty of rest and should be recovering well. But not so this time.  My head felt heavy, sleep was still a rarity and always the violent spasms of coughing tearing up my lungs despite four days of medication. Perhaps the viral strain from a foreign country is proving itself to be a harder adversary for my body to deal with.

It may sound ridiculous and out of place. The compelling reason why I was so racked by anxiety of not recovering quickly enough to restore my health was mainly because of a mountain. Yes literally speaking, a mountain more than 4000 m in height which I have planned to climb. And the crucial date that is looming closer with each day I spent languishing in bed – 8^th of May, is less than a week away.  It would be expected to be the most physically arduous venture I had undertaken all my life.

Mount Kinabalu is a mountain located somewhere in Borneo Islands that is beckoning and for which a small group of friends and I have made a date to climb. We have booked the trip early in the year and have been meeting regularly every few weeks to trek around our nature reserves and build our fitness to prepare for the climb.  Like the majority of leisure climbers we will be taking the easy route that requires no mountaineering skills but the climber is still expected to be in very good physical condition.

I had in the past floated the idea of climbing this mountain to Jenny.  But she was not an outdoor person so the mountain had little appeal to her.  In later years I had suggested teaming up with friends for the climb. Without her of course.

 “And leave me alone at home worrying for you?  At your age it is too risky! You never realise you are not as young anymore”.  Cold water quickly dousing whatever flames of enthusiasm that might still be simmering within me.  The idea was quickly canned. How could I make her worry for me just so I could pursue my own selfish ambitions?

But lately my good friend J was keen on climbing the mountain and had plans to organise a trip for a small group of 5.  Do it before we get too old. This is true. And it gives us a reason to push ourselves further in our physical workouts. Like doing vertical climbs of 40 storey blocks not once but twice over. Or trekking around our central reservoir, a 12 km route at around 2 hours.

So Mount Kinabalu was a much anticipated project, a date I had clearly marked on my calendar and for which I was very much looking forward to. Back to nature, and the possibility of standing on the peak of the highest point in the region, with my head above clouds or if the weather is clear, to see as far as the eye can see.

But I did not see this flu bug coming and how it appears now to be playing havoc to my next holiday plan. I could see Jenny from a distance looking satisfied of this unexpected turn in events that would now be scuttling my plans. But she would also share my disappointment if I have to cancel the trip as getting even a partial refund will be highly unlikely.

I will  need to work harder over the next few days to rid myself of this virus and get myself back in shape.  Even if it is a mountain to climb.

A visit to the UK

I spent the better part of this week in the United Kingdom, on an official visit to meet some of our partners in Liverpool and Glasgow.  Liverpool was my first stop.  City of the Fab Four, the legendary Beatles and home to the greatest football club on this earth. Alright that might just be my totally unobjective view. And perhaps also for the millions of other fanatical die-hard supporters of the mighty Reds all over the world. OK, the once-upon-a-time mighty Reds. We are just respectfully but blatantly biased. But even when seen through rose-tinted lenses, as I stepped out from the Lime Street train station, the city appeared to have seen better days. Not quite decrepit but ostensibly dowdy and dated.

To be fair, my one night stay at Liverpool this week confined to the train station vicinity was far too brief to qualify me for comment on its true worth and heritage. But brief as it was, I was awash with waves of warm memories.  I had last visited Liverpool on a winter holiday with Jenny and the kids.  Some 8 years ago. We had great fun exploring the historic Albert Dockyards off the River Mersey, towering cathedrals and many of the free-admission museums around the city.

Most memorable was the tour to Anfield football stadium. No self-respecting fan would miss this pilgrimage. Even Jenny, who was never a football fan and understood little about the game was infected by my overflow of exuberance. Gamely, she posed in the dressing room where the players’ jerseys were neatly hung and displayed against the wall, providing an excellent backdrop for many photo-shots.  She lovingly hugged the glass casing within which sat the Club’s priceless treasure, the much coveted Champions League trophy won in the finals at Istanbul 2005, where Liverpool created one of the most famous comebacks in football history. My sweet and dainty Jenny, sharing the joy with her football-mad husband so that he would never have to walk alone.

But last Tuesday, with some time to kill before my meeting, I walked alone over the cobbled streets of Liverpool.

Outside the St George’s Hall around a cluster of old Victorian buildings, stood a cast bronze barrel-like structure about 7 feet tall, with bouquets of flowers strewn on the pavement all around it.  It turned out to be a monument to commemorate the Hillsborough disaster some 27 years ago when 96 Liverpool fans were killed. I took a few photographs for keepsake. The anniversary of the disaster was just two days apart of Jenny’s passing on date. All around the city is bathed in brilliant sunshine, rare for the English weather in the advent of spring. But the sunshine failed to brighten the mood. And the Hillsborough disaster monument was just another sombre reminder that death is always an inevitable part of life.  Unpredictable and heart-wrenching for the ones left behind.

The Hillsborough disaster monument in Liverpool city centre

The next day I caught the early train to Glasgow. There was a change of train at Preston. The rest of the journey was in first class seats on the new Virgin coaches. The train company knew how to pamper its passengers.  I ordered an egg Benedictine even as I was not hungry and started to regret after stuffing in the first egg as I felt the agony of over-eating. Still, I finished most of the meal just so as not to be seen as being a food-waster. Travelling first class, and the day before for my flight to the UK, on business class on our national carrier I felt undeservedly privileged. The business class seat could fold itself into a flat bed allowing passengers to stretch out and sleep with reasonable comfort. But I lied in the darkness of the half-empty cabin for much of the 13 hour flight without sleeping a wink. I rarely could sleep on flights but unlike coping with the discomfort of economy class seating, this first time experience of lying horizontally did not help either. Half-awake in the dark, I spent much of the flight reminiscing about my past life with my dearest departed wife. It was an opportune time to recollect the memories to keep them fresh.

The bathroom  glass walls offers limited privacy.

In Glasgow, I checked into the CitizenM hotel at Renfrew Street. On the website, when I did the booking, the hotel had claimed to offer its guests with an “innovative hotel experience”.  Thus far, It is hard to argue with that. Stepping into the hotel lobby I struggled to orientate myself in search of the check-in counter. Instead there was an array of self-servicing terminals for a DIY check-in.  That was a first for me. The décor and furnishing around the lobby was visibly chic and modern, with strong colours.  There was a familiar feel of stepping into a designer’s show-room. Even the directional signs were playfully creative and eye-catching. 



The hotel room was particularly small with the king-sized mattress installed wall-to-wall, occupying most of the floor space. The TV, a large flat screen was mounted against one side of the wall above the bed and the windows with its curtain blinds, stretch across the entire width of the room on the adjacent wall. The toilet and shower tray was entirely encased in a stylishly curved wall of frosted glass, from floor to ceiling. The light from within the bath room filtered out to the other side of the room depriving whoever is bathing inside of total privacy as faint images of nakedness would be exposed through the translucent glass. I could not imagine Jenny wanting to ever share this room with me even as we have been married for so many years given her unyielding need to safeguard her modesty.

Weather-wise we could not have chosen a better week to travel to Scotland.  That the British cannot stop talking about the weather is not new to me. But after umpteenth sessions, where each and every one of our meeting hosts repeated ad infinitum about how we (my lady colleague and I) had “brought in the sunshine”, it got somewhat tiresome. Long-haul travelling mortals we were but weather-gods definitely not. We were just plain lucky to have enjoyed Scotland in glorious sunshine instead of the usual grey and cold drizzle the locals are so used to.

There would be so much I could share with Jenny on my travel experience if only she could be there to greet me when I return home. She would be full of envy to hear of the perks I got treated to. But she would have been very happy for me too.

Glaswegians basking and enjoying the brilliant sunshine, while it lasts

 

My first year, without you

Honey Dearest,

It’s been a year, finally. This first year after your passing on. Leaving me a widower and the children without their mother.

But did I say “finally”? Is this first anniversary so highly anticipated? It’s not one for celebration.

In truth, I have been counting each day since your passing on and each day brings me closer to this eventual date – 17^th of April, the day the world caved in for me and the kids.

Looking back, this year, surely must have been the longest in my life. Yet I remember the events so well. Your last days in the hospital. The children and I by your bedside, harbouring faint hopes for a miracle recovery to happen. And that surreal feeling of numbness as I talked to the undertakers for your funeral arrangements. Stroking your cheeks one last time as you lay in your casket, feeling the waxy half-likeness of your face and wondering how even in death, you still look so beautiful to me. And the crushing moment when your casket was slowly driven into the furnace.  These images remain vividly engraved in my mind as if they took place just weeks ago.

It might sound creepy, knowing that I actually count the days through your first year. At some point I know I should just it give up. It sounds like such a mental burden. But each day without you has been an uphill struggle. The day’s agenda might differ but one thing stays the same. Missing you. And sometimes half-wondering how life would have been if you are still alive, by my side.  My mind plays tricks and games, wandering back a lot.

Getting up each morning, your side of bed, now cold and empty, reminds me of the kind of day that awaits. Another day without you. So each day starts the same as the one before. Regardless of work-days or weekends. And it matters not if I awoke on holidays at faraway places like Bangkok, Perth or Barcelona, where we had ventured to this past year, or in our Villa Verde home. Always, I wake up into a reality that is scarier than the dream I just awoke from.

But I urge and prompt myself to live the day for you. Because I know how much you had wanted to live. To fight and survive. Against the dreaded disease that finally took you down and away from us. Away from all that you held precious.

So, Honey, for me the 366 days of this last leap year has a strange feel. Colours were not as bright. Food tasted blander and it’s nothing to do with the cooking. Music that I once found so uplifting, now sounded melancholic and off-key. Even the silence has a deafening echo around it. There is a stillness in our house that I have not gotten used to. Our house and bedroom which we shared for so long now seems too large, too empty.

But you will be delighted that I am not paralysed and overwhelmed by your loss. I could function well enough. I had dealt with the endless paperwork for deed transfer, insurance claims, credit card cancellations and obtaining the grant of probate.  The kitchen is well stocked with food each week. The household is in good order. Well, most of the time I think. Somewhere from within I found the reserves to help me rise above my sorrows. I do what needs to be done, so life can go one. Losing you was devastating, needless to say. I was dunked into a deep pool of grief. It left a gaping hole torn inside me. But though I am hurt and scarred, I am far from sunk. I guess I could count this as the greatest achievement in my life. But it is not anything I could be proud of.

We had previously casually chatted about the possibility of death separating us and leaving whoever survived the other lost and stranded. We could not foretell the future. But I wonder if in surviving you, I turned out to be the bigger loser. What was sure is I could not imagine what a real loss would feel like. Until now. That sense of loss and hurt is always there, ever present, clinging on like saran wrap. It never leaves me.

It was not that we had never been far apart for long spells of time during our marriage years. In the past I had stayed away from home for several months on overseas work attachments. Once in Northern Ireland and again in Ottawa. But the distances that separated us on those occasions were merely geographical.  Now you are missing everywhere. And permanently. The totality of your loss and absence sometimes terrifies me and I feel stressed and anxious. One year on and I still find it hard to get used to.

I now yearn for you even more than when you were alive. Such is the cruel irony.  How we tend to treasure things more only after losing them. These days I spend long evenings after work, by myself in our bedroom and on weekends strolling, again on my own, in outdoor parks and gardens, to reminiscent on our past life together. I try to recall the times we had shared, from ordinary, plain and banal days to happy occasions and the odd days when we bicker over differences.  We have shared so much between us, raising up three kids and building our home in three different dwellings, progressing from public housing to a larger landed property so there can be more space to grow our family. Thanks to you being so savvy in sniffing out good deals in real estates.

You may say that I now spend more time looking back than looking forward. Am I living in the past? Perhaps.  I do not like to think of the upcoming future. The future is somewhat frightening. My old school-mate had advised against worrying about what is yet to come. Savour the present and be grateful for the day. I try to abide by this wisdom and just focus on the present. Live a day at a time. The future will take care of itself, I suppose. We could never tell what is imminent.

As for work, my morale and motivation is akin to a bouncing yo-yo. One day I would feel so low and was quite sure of packing up and calling quits. Another day, could find me all charged up, vowing that the work engagement was god-sent. It is hard to argue that the distraction offered by work could have saved me from drowning in grief. You have warned me often of not quitting early as work is the best way to keep our minds occupied. I will remember this well.

But this first year has found me doing things I have never done before also. Like starting this blog site for example.

Putting my thoughts in writing allow me a form of emotional release. There is a word to describe this – catharsis.  But I also know how much you value your privacy so you may not sanction all these postings, sharing our life together in public domain. But can you really fault me for keeping this blog? There are many other poor souls out there who have lost their spouses and have similarly set up blog sites to share their grief. I spend many evenings reading their stories. In many ways we are kindred spirits, a sort of a community, united in grief. Our open sharing helped in our healing. A problem shared is a problem halved so they say. And in the past we always have each other to lend a shoulder and share our troubles. But now, there is just this blog site.

So over the past year there have been good days and some not so good ones. But the one constant for each day would be your total absence. And my missing you.

A whole year has passed without you. I think this next year ahead will not change very much. I will welcome each new day. For it brings me closer to you. When we can be together again. And that is the reason for counting, my remaining days without you.

Please wish me a better year ahead, Honey. I love you so much.

  

Dealing with anniversaries...

Jenny’s first death anniversary is fast approaching. Less than 2 weeks away. Somehow for heavy-hearted grieving husbands like me, anniversaries take on a special emotional significance.

In the past I have never dwelled much on anniversaries. Not for my birthday or even for our wedding anniversaries, shameful to say. Those days come and go without much fuss or fanfare. After all we always had each other. But I never envisioned that our days of blissful togetherness would be so numbered. And to run down so quickly.

Grief has a way of turning a despairing widower into a chronically inveterate clock-watcher. Never before have I been so time conscious. I found myself keeping count of each day gone.

And why not?

I was enduring her total absence. It is a strange new existence. Like today, being the 351^st day into this new era of lost coupledom. Of life without her.

I have already accepted that this is all part of the “new normal” for me. And recent dates like 13^th of March reminded me of the day, exactly a year ago when she was hospitalised and never got to return home again. Dates like 21^st of October, when her scan results confirmed her to be the latest cancer statistic and we bade farewell to the carefree halcyon days we had been blessed with for so long, up till then. And dates like 17^th April that is looming near, when she drew her final breath, making her curtain call from the stage of life.  Anniversaries take on a new meaning for the newly bereaved. It sounds sad, but it is part of our new normal.

I am mindful also of a rather huge decision to make with her anniversary looming near. Should I mark the occasion in the obituary section of our national news-paper? It will not be trivial from a cost point of view, granted the increasing prices to take out advertising space in the widely circulated English daily, the only one in our small country.  More so, I was grappling with a lot of what-fors? What would I be trying to prove? Do I really need to tell and show the world I miss her? People who close to me knew that well enough. Those more distant would probably care little and how many would even notice the print? 

But it did not take me long to decide. This is her first anniversary. I could not let it come and go without marking it in print. Shoot me if nobody else cared. I will not stinge on the expense. Jenny would have preferred prudence, but I knew I would regret big-time if I missed putting a notice in the obituaries for her, come that day.

I immediately got down to compose the words for the obituary, to best describe my anguish of losing and missing her over the year.  The passage has to be trim and concise. I realised also that this tribute has to be recorded collectively. I cannot be selfish even as at times, it seemed like I am grieving alone. Our children and her immediate family are also bearing the pain of her loss. And Jenny is also remembered fondly by her many friends and colleagues. The death anniversary notice will include them all.

I typed out the following passage and saved it in a document, along with my favourite picture of her, the one taken at the Blue Mountains in Australia. I am sure that picture will be the one most fitting to use.  Nearer to the date, I will send the document to the newspaper for print. Having decided, I felt more at peace.

It has been a year since you left us

But not a day passes without our hearts aching for you

And missing you, your gentle ways and tender smile, your kindness of heart

A light once so bright, sadly shines no more

But wonderful wife, loving mother and caring daughter and sister that you were,

We will always remember, and you will always be loved,

Forever, you remain, endeared within

 

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.