15 years had passed and till this day, i still wonder what would have been his last words to my brother and me at the very last moment of his life. I'm not sure if not being by his deathbed would be the greatest rue of my life, but not having the chance to know him better and to let him know that how much i've loved him is definitely my greatest regret.
I don't normally feel melancholy every year on his death anniversary. This year, however, my sorrow was triggered by some old journals that had been kept high up in the closet. I have been doing house cleaning over the past few weekends. As i was fumbling through my old stuff that were covered with dust, i came across my old journals (周记) and essays that were written during my high school days. I couldn't help but flipped through the journals and reminisced the good old days, amused by my childishness and insignificant youth vexation. When i was reading the journal from Junior III, it ceased to be amusing. Sadness dawned upon me as i was reminded of how dad had suffered from the torment of colon cancer.
Here are the pages that mentioned my dad (pardon my lousy translation):
Translation:
5-1-1990, I'm in a very bad mood recently. Dad was diagnosed with cancer in November last year and was hospitalized. Even though he has been discharged from the hospital, he is still very weak and couldn't manage the company anymore. Thus, he sold the company and intends to move to another place. I don't know how our lives in future will be and i'm very sad. Everytime when i see dad's pale face and mom's weariness from taking care of dad, i felt even more miserable. Whenever i faced unhappiness, mom would listen to me. Now i can't tell her my troubles anymore because i don't want her to be bothered with these petty things. Now whenever i encountered difficulties in school, i would have to keep it to myself. I really feel like crying.
Translation:
20-1-1990, Doctor has confirmed that the tumour that was removed from dad had grown back. The doctor said dad must go through another operation but even so, he could only live for another year. Until now, i still can't feel the pain of losing my dad. I only feel very sad and hope that i could be filial to him while he's still living, so as to thank him for spending his whole life working to bring me up.
Teacher's comment: Cherish the time you have and fill the home with happiness. Don't make your parents worry.
Translation:
20-7-1990, Lately i gotta go back home directly after school because dad may not be able to make it. Mom said she's afraid something unexpected may happen so she wants me to be at home. Dad went back to the hospital for checkup and the medical report showed that the cancerous cells in the liver had decreased in number, but more unfortunately they had spread to intestines, lung, both kidneys and lymph gland, etc. The days are numbered. Now dad's waist to feet are all swollen, as if air had been pumped into the body. Doctor said if the swell continues up to the chest, he will fall into a coma, and then...
Translation:
19-8-1990, Dad has passed away. It was very strange that i felt relief. Perhaps dad's illness had dragged for so long and this kind of ending was expected, so i didn't feel devastated. I was absent from school for almost a week. It has been very tiring these few days. Now i know how tiring funeral is. I didn't sleep for almost three days. I'm dead beat!
Teacher's comment: To him, the sickness was a torment and it was a relief to him. It is good that you think in this way. Hope you can be stronger and work harder because of this, so as to give the elderly (especially your late father) a peace of mind.
Through the writing, it appeared that i wasn't very sad when he passed away. Looking back, i guessed i indeed didn't feel as devastated as i should have been. I don't even remember if i had cried at all. I'm not sure why. Perhaps i'm a cold-blooded person by nature, or maybe i was really relieved of his passing because he had suffered for too long.
From the diagnosis of his cancer to his death was less than a year. Some may say that it's not really a long period. However, anyone who has had the similar experience of slowly losing a loved one would understand my feeling. Even passing a day was like a year...
Dad was a strong person. He rarely fell sick and always bragged about how he would not be ill even once when we all had been sick for ten times. Then one night in November 1989, he felt an excruciating pain in his stomach. It was so painful that i was told he couldn't even stand up straight and needed my mom and brother to support him to the car. Mom let me sleep through the night without waking me up and it wasn't until the next day that i got to know that dad was already in the hospital in JB.
No doctor attended to dad that night and he had to suffered through the throes the whole night. The next day, after taking X-ray of his stomach, the doctor told us that he had a big tumour in his colon that must be removed immediately. After much consideration and the unpleasant experience of the previous night, mom arranged for dad's transfer to the NUS Hospital in Singapore for operation. I still remembered the day when he underwent the operation. We waited in the hospital for hours. When he was trundled out from the operation room, he was still in an anesthetic state, but we could see his fingers moving as if wanting to hold something. I held his hand in mine from the time he was out of the operation room until he awoke. That was the only time during his sickness that i showed my concern.
After the operation and further examination, the doctor confirmed that dad was already in the 4th stage of colon cancer and the cancerous cells had already spread to his other organs. We were told that he would live not more than a year. I was already 15 years old then and should have been old enough to feel sad upon hearing this news, but i've never had anyone dear to me passed away. So even though i know what death was, i couldn't really grasp the idea of losing someone forever.
Over the next few months, dad spent his remaining days going through the chemotherapy and taking medication or whatever people said that could help to cure cancer. Because of his kidney failure, his whole body began to swollen and thus couldn't have any clothes on. As such, i was kept outside of his room most of the time and everytime i got the chance to see him, he was getting thinner and weaker. Within half a year, i saw my dad, from a strong healthy man, turned into a frail old man.
I don't think i could ever understand the kind of agony he has gone through. He told us that the pain caused by cancer is the worst in the world; sometimes the throes would be so unbearable that he would scribble on the paper to question what he had done to have to go through this torment and that he would rather die than to suffer like this. I was heart-broken when i read his scrawl, especially when i knew full well that dad had never done anything so wrong to deserve this suffering.
I guess it's human nature that when there isn't an answer or cure to our suffering, we would turn to the Almighty one. Dad took refuge in Buddhism and moved to his brother's place in KL (my uncle was a supposed staunch Buddhist). In the last month of his life, the pain has gotten so bad that doctor had to inject medical doses of morphine to relieve his pain. As my brother and i had to go to school, we couldn't follow our parents to KL so we stayed back in JB. We would traveled to KL over weekends to be by his side, but he was either sleeping or too weak to talk most of the time.
On the morning of 15-August-1990, dad passed away quietly, at the age of 49. Only mom was at his side but she was sleeping then. When she woke up, she found dad in a lotus position (like Buddha). She tried to wake him up and then realized that he was already gone. No one knew if he passed away in his sleep or he did wake up before he went away. I chose to think that he had passed away peacefully without any pain and the angels must have been there to bring him to heaven. This seems to be a silly thought coming from a self-proclaimed "free thinker".
Dad's remains were cremated after three days of funeral and his ashes were scattered on the Klang River. I don't know why dad wished to have his ashes scattered on a river, but i hope the water could bring him to places that he had planned to visit when he retired but never had the chance to do so.
After more than a decade since i lost my dad, i would still dream of him sometimes. In my dreams, he was always the strong and healthy father whom i remembered, never the frail old figure during his battle with cancer. If there is indeed another world beyond the one that we are living in, i believe he was happy and well in that world, just as he appeared in my dreams...
Dad, this is for you.
