Reflection on Death

I am typing this post on the train, with the laptop hotspotted to my phone.

For some reason, I felt that blogging the recent two posts was therapeutic and it seemed to heal a certain part of me.

Sometimes, what we say casually could become an empowerment in another's life. I thought about the comment about how I should not be controlled by a stranger who was, in my opinion, purely jealous of me.

I was reading my blog last night when I finished posting. I read the post on the passing of my friend. I looked at the date I first created the blog. It was 2006 when Coco went to school. That's almost 20 years ago!

Recently, I have been thinking about death.

Actually, I have been thinking about death ever since my father passed 4 years ago. Every single day. 

What's different about my recent thoughts about death is the peacefulness of it when I think about it now.

I never knew living can become so hard when a parent passes. Many years ago, my father and I were watching a Taiwanese drama serial in which a nasty woman demeaned her daughter-in-law's mother by asking condescendingly, "Don't you know nobody puts the portrait of a dead child in the house?"

I asked my father why.

He explained that seeing a dead child's portrait would break the parent's heart.

I asked, "Doesn't that apply to children putting their late parent's portrait in the house too?"

He thought for a brief second and replied, "It's natural for parents to pass before children."

But it's very hard.

Every day, I miss him. I think about how I could see him again.

And I know it's only through death that it's possible.

Recently, I had a black mole-like growth that appeared on my face. The growth was phenomenal and it remained there for weeks. I read up on it and the most likely answer Google gave me was skin cancer. My fifth sister was quite worried when she saw the growth. One of her close friends was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer late last year. So naturally, she suspected that it was skin cancer like what Google had suggested.

I didn't see a doctor in the end.

I scraped it from the sides from time to time. It was crusty. Most of the time, it bled.

But recently, it seemed to have dried up and fallen off. There's still a little black dot left though.

I asked a doctor-friend if more of them would sprout on my face and disfigure me if I ignored it. He said no, but it could grow deeper, so the best thing to do is to arrest it early and remove it.

Honestly, to a large extent, I am quite done in life. I think I have lived through a few lifetimes within these 40 odd years. I think I have done most of what I would like to do and I don't have much to look forward to. My children no longer need me. I almost feel that I have outlived my usefulness. 

In fact, I live in the fear of losing my mother now. Her liver is hardening and it seems to be irreversible. My third sister who takes her to the doctor told me that the demise could happen between the next five to ten years, and ten years is a long stretch. Losing one parent already cuts out so much meaning in my life. I don't know how life should carry on if I lose my mother. 

I hope that God will be merciful and let me pass before my mother does.