imagine

imagine you might - would, if you believed the doctor - lose your dad before you turned 20 (or worse, 19);
imagine you had to watch him try to, and give up on, sitting up to clear his throat;
imagine you had to watch him ebbing away on a hospital bed hooked up to a drip at the mercy of the needle;
imagine you had to watch a once-strong hand that once held the feared feather-duster struggle to put pen to paper, using the crumbling ruins of an elegant cursive script;
imagine you had to watch as he dozed, occasionally twitching, stirring, lapsing, sleeping again;
imagine you had to watch him occasionally waking up to mutter - "tell the 2 malay deliverymen that they can go back. the lab doesn't need the animals. the animals don't need food. animal psychology" - to ask after your (late) grandmother - "did someone call lee su yee? i heard someone say lee su yee" - or the (non-existent medicine) - "where's my medicine? tell the nurses i've lost my medicine" - or worse - "tell dr tan it's too late to do anything";
imagine you had to watch him give a thumbs up and struggle to find and grasp your hand as you showed him the one sentence - "promise me you'll be around for my birthday" - written because you couldn't summon up the guts to say it;
imagine that you had nothing to do but watch.

now imagine that you didn't have to imagine.

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fuck. there i go tearing again, emo shit. so my dad is terminally ill with colon cancer, and the prognosis isn't good. the doctor who's handling my dad's case called my mom on monday to say he probably only has a few weeks left. he's deteriorated quite a bit over the past week. been in hospital since a day before POP (that's last monday), and now although he's still very much alert he's imagining things and can't talk because he's too tired and phlegm's built up in his throat. we're bringing him back home on fri (if all goes to plan), and he'll be on a drip and probably a liquid diet from now till - till it's time. i just feel incredibly helpless, seeing him there, occasionally staring with the eyes that see and don't see.

i had to go out and get a suit for the inevitable, myself, today. my mom decided he'd go off in a pink shirt and a new suit, because i pointed out she should keep the old jacket - the one from their wedding. heavens no i don't think you'd want to burn that one. pink? he's never worn pink as far as i know; his colour's beige. can what he's never worn in life become him in death? not my place to say anything though. so for 2 hours today i could lose myself in all the morbid calculations - either striped shirt or jacket, but not both striped - diagonal stripes? ugh - solid colours? - how about a two-tone shirt? - damn the sales staff they're daoing me - will that go with the red tie we have? - that style disaster for $249? wtf? - heavens no not a blue blazer plz. - those stripes are fucked - etc. but once that was done it was only a short step from visualising him in the suit, to visualising him, lying down in the suit in the hands of the sleep that dares not speak its name.

i'm numb most of the time when i'm not thinking about it. when i am thinking, i'm pining for the papa i know from childhood. the one who found blue food colouring for my cake on my third birthday. who piggybacked me back from the doctor when i was three. who brought me to the zoo so many times when i was four and five. who walked me back from school when i was six. who sent me to school and picked me up without fail throughout primary and secondary school - and halfway through JC before he had to stop. who in his heart of hearts bore all my coldness in my teenage years when people get embarrassed of their parents, before i realised what an utter bastard i'd become. i want to be seven again, when life was expressed in simplest terms and everything that could be perfect was perfect and i thought they'd stay that way for ever and ever amen but i can't.

what tears at me most is that what has to be said can never be said, not any more. even if he could be well enough to listen to what i must say, i probably won't be around; i'll be in camp, torn from my family at the time when most i need them and they need me. i might have to face the fact that come next book-out there'll only be 2 people in my family. and so things pass out of our hands, out of control. i used to think that everything was in our hands; humanity shapes destiny. but how can that be reconciled with the finality of mortality?

i'm sorry, papa. i'll never ever be the son you hoped i would be, i guess. i hope i made you happy in the little time we had; i hope i can still do that in the little time we have left. if i had my chance again things wouldn't be this way.

maybe i shouldn't think. let go, no regrets, shantih, shantih, shantih, amen, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, live on-