In Memory with Love

31-May was a fine, normal Monday until sister called me in the middle of the day, while I was doing some routine shopping in a grocery store...

Instantly, I knew it wasn't a good news she would deliver to me. How I wish I was wrong, but indeed she told me that father has been hospitalized, and he was in very very critical condition, and the doctor asked us to get ready...

*

After some long hours waiting at home, finally the phone rang when I was fixing for a simple dinner. Brother told me that father has been certified as brain dead, and he couldn't even breathe on his own without the help from a machine. After many discussion, the doctor had decided to stop every resurrection. Instead, they suggested we should take him home if this is his wish.

My heart was sinking when I get this devastating confirmation. It's totally beat me down. I desperately wanted to see my father in the shortest time possible, but husband couldn't find any flight to KL or Singapore at night time....it was really a long-hour waiting for that night.

When the 4 of us finally reached hometown in the next day, the time was already 4.45 pm. Brother told me the ambulance would arrive home around that time too. I kept looking at my watch, didn't really know what to do but waiting. Just when the heavy rain started, the ambulance arrived. I checked my watch, it's 5.10 pm. Time was counting down.

Although I had had enough time to prepare for this last moment, I just couldn't control myself when I saw father being pushed down from the ambulance. It's very sad to see his fragile and motionless body, inserted with the oxygen tube that kept him breathing all the way.

*

Brother said hearing is the last sensory that would fade away, so we should talk more to him while still can. After he was settled on his bed at home, we take turn to say good bye to him. I stroked his forehead gently, told him that we all have made it home to see him. And I thank him for his support and loves all these years, that he could go in peace, with no regret.

At 5.30 pm, the man removed the oxygen tube from him. That was the most difficult moment in my entire life ! Looking at his chest with nearly invisible up-down movement, I just couldn't leave him like this. I stayed at his bedside, holding his hand, didn't remember what was the things I have mumbled at him.

After a while, probably 5 minutes later, something very unexpected happened. Father moved his hands that were originally put on the bed to his chest. And I felt that he held my hand with a very weak force. It shocked me a great deal, and I shouted : Do you see this, do you see this ?

When I turned around, I just saw husband who still stood behind me...everyone else was in the kitchen to speak to the funeral organizer. I was hoping for more miracles to happen, but that's the all. Father did it in a relax manner, just like his usual way to put his hands on his chest when he went to sleep. I think he was trying to tell me : Ok, I wanna to rest lah, so go now...

We all gathered by his bedside again, I could feel his body trembling for a while, then calm down very fast. That's the time he left us forever. The time was 5.40 pm (coincidentally 1-Jun is brother CW's birthday).

Strange but true, I felt very comforting for father was able to show me this miracle before he's gone forever. That gave me a feeling that he really could hear what we've said to him, and he was there with us all the time too, though he had never regained consciousness since the time he collapsed at home the day before.

Although father has no last-word to us, no last-look at us, there is not nothing he left behind to us. In fact, the things that he had left behind are a lot more than any words can say. His spirit will be kept instill me for the rest of my life. And he will be forever an indispensable person in my heart.

Thanks dad, for everything. Good Bye.