After dinner, I received a text from my cousin and note miss calls from my home. Perhaps due to dreadful experience or intuition, my thoughts up-roared "not again, nothing must happen to any of my scared family members"... in my head, and my heartbeat pounding alongside when I returned call to my cousin who directed another number which belongs to my paternal uncle.
After getting the details, I hopped into a cab and rushed all the way from Chinatown (the place where I dined with my colleagues) to St Joseph's Home in Jurong West St 23. Learnt from my uncle that my aunt wouldn't last through tonight.
Although I wasn't close to my aunt (whom we addressed as "gu gu" or "paternal aunt" in chinese), we used visit her with our parents during every chinese new year. I recall those days of going to her one-room flat, eating crackers and watching "Journey to the West" which never seemed to stop broadcasting by Singapore mediaCorp or TCS at the time. The least I could remember was her kind hospitality despite she was a pauper and her gentle down-to-earth and strong character which left a deep impression since young.
She was a tough lady, working most of the time. Yet yesterday, the frail and thin lady lying on the bed before me, breathing on a life support machine, reflected a total contrary to my childhood impression of my aunt. It was heart-breaking to see her so thin and weak. I could do nothing but stare at her, and ask occasional questions to learn how she was admitted to the home for the hospice.
The last time I saw gu gu was at SGH with my ah-ma and ma-ma when she suffered hydra-inflammation in her lungs. What I never learnt was a month later, gu gu underwent an operation for breast cancer and was admitted to St Joseph Home thereafter. Sad thing I didn't visit her this year because of Jimson, my work and life commitments.
After getting the details, I hopped into a cab and rushed all the way from Chinatown (the place where I dined with my colleagues) to St Joseph's Home in Jurong West St 23. Learnt from my uncle that my aunt wouldn't last through tonight.
Although I wasn't close to my aunt (whom we addressed as "gu gu" or "paternal aunt" in chinese), we used visit her with our parents during every chinese new year. I recall those days of going to her one-room flat, eating crackers and watching "Journey to the West" which never seemed to stop broadcasting by Singapore mediaCorp or TCS at the time. The least I could remember was her kind hospitality despite she was a pauper and her gentle down-to-earth and strong character which left a deep impression since young.
She was a tough lady, working most of the time. Yet yesterday, the frail and thin lady lying on the bed before me, breathing on a life support machine, reflected a total contrary to my childhood impression of my aunt. It was heart-breaking to see her so thin and weak. I could do nothing but stare at her, and ask occasional questions to learn how she was admitted to the home for the hospice.
The last time I saw gu gu was at SGH with my ah-ma and ma-ma when she suffered hydra-inflammation in her lungs. What I never learnt was a month later, gu gu underwent an operation for breast cancer and was admitted to St Joseph Home thereafter. Sad thing I didn't visit her this year because of Jimson, my work and life commitments.
Last year, we just did our visit, without Mummy... just Jimson, daddy and me. This year, one more member passed away just like that. It sorrow emerges, the grief resurface and heart drowns in tears again.
On my journey to SJH yesterday, I kept questioning myself.. what is it which I've done wrong to undergo this dreadful thing over and over again.. Is it my bad karma? Painfully, I screamed in silence, if there was a God, what is he trying to tell me? Why has it got to be upon my family to make me go through these recurring pain... someone's telling me something...
