Time - Not Ours

One of the blogs that I started following this year is that of Gwenn Mangine, an American missionary based in Haiti. Gwenn's reflection has not failed to touch a chord within my soul - it is my hope that one day, if I am blessed, I can shake the hand of this fine lady.

Following this blog is not the easiest thing to do though on a daily basis. Cos it deals with things that are beyond my - in fact, any of us - control. And it often deals with a subject that I am still trying to learn more about, come to terms with and accept as part and parcel of life (yes, I am delusional like that!).

Her latest post, about Jean Claude (R.I.P.) really brings home one point - that our time, on earth - is well and truly not ours. Just as I read somewhere the other day, my children are not mine - they are on loaned to me from above, so is our time and this thing we call life. For this man survived an earthquake that claimed hundreds and thousands of lives, only to lose his in a fire.

What can I do then today, on my borrowed time, that would make me proud of who I have become? 

Focus

en·vi·ron·ment ~ noun

 

• The aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences; surroundings; milieu.
• The air, water, minerals, organisms and all other external factors surrounding and affecting a given organism at any time (Ecology)
• The social and cultural forces that shape the life of a person or a population.

One of my ex-colleagues got married over the weekend. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend due to this cold I'm having ~ wouldn't have been nice to be the cause of why half her guest list fell ill soon after she got married. She was my Admin Assistant from 2 years ago. Didn't work long for me, but till this day, I can remember her honesty at her interview, the reasons why we picked her out of 200+ candidates and why we hugged and cried together on my last day at work at that place.

Perhaps I am a sentimental fool, wanting to bring back the fond past, imprint it into the present.

Perhaps I am an idealist, believing in work culture that is now hard-pressed to find.

Whatever it is the environment that I am in, I can no longer run with it. The air has become so hard to breathe; to say I’m being asphyxiated by it would be an understatement. Yet, it is not a state that is 100% within my control.

It is frustrating. It is demoralising. It is dilapidating.

But I must push on. Bear in mind that it is transitory. That soon, all these will go away. I must remember all these cos one day, it will be in my hands to shape the environment and culture that I believe to be nurturing (with the right persons) and mutually (to both the people and company) beneficial.

As my favourite author says: We need to create a new revolution, and to do that, don’t waste your life: stop pleasing people, and become who you always wanted to be.

Hear Us Please...

Today is the latest I had my bath after waking. It’s coming close to half past noon already but the chores of the morning were just concluded.

Coming home has always been poignant but it has never touched the depth that it did today. It drives home the point that life is so much easier to assimilate and adapt to when you’re many miles away. It less guilty for one to say “but what can I do with this distance in between?!”

My aunt asked if I could help her with my grandma’s daily shower this morning cos my other aunt and uncle have their own things to attend to. Doing chores around the house has become the norm – we are after all now grown adults, running our own households. Besides, with my grandma being so withered as she is now, how difficult can it be to assist in lifting her from the bed to the bath?! Add to that, I may not be professionally trained, but I’ll be the next in line after the two nurses in the family to be exposed to healthcare as a reality.

Little did I know that what I had expected to be a sit-and-wait-for-15 minutes turned out to be a 2 hour affair.

You see, grandma has been bedridden since her fall 2 Christmas ago. Add with the fact that she is now about 7 years shy of a century in age, it is more or less a serious state of internal systems failure. She no longer has any control over many bits of her body.

As I waited each time my aunt checked if she was ready to come off the throne, it was evident that aunty’s sanity is shaved off that wee bit more. When we finally got her cleaned and out of the bath, as we made the trip, encouraging her to take that step forward towards the bed so we could dressed her, I could smell that she would need another cleaning. And that was the straw that broke the camel on my aunt’s back.

My aunt is not a bad person. She really isn’t. To do this, day-in, day-out even as she is in her own golden years, is not something I can see myself doing. I would have the mental strength to be able to take it. And I know it pains her to see grandma in the state that she is.

Last night, as I read Gwen’s daily posting, my heart broke when I read of Jemima and Ezaye. I sat on the couch and tears welled up in my eyes as I read of how Gwen cradled these babies and sang to them of joy awaiting them in our Father’s house.

Today those same emotions are brought right back to the surface that I had to hide in the backyard, using cigarette smoke to shield the break I know that was and is evident on my face.

I ache not for the burden that has been given to our family. We were all brought up right to know that it is a privilege, not a burden.

I ache for one plain simple fact through all this, my grandma is well aware of what is happening to her – this loss of control and the pain she deems to be bringing on to the ones who are taking care of her.

I ache cos we were all brought up by her, and so we carry in ourselves, the one fierce sense of independence. And if even in my quarantine period from suspected H1N1 I had refused any one to bring me food, I cannot imagine what goes through her mind (though I do not really need my imagine – she voices out her wish to be released from this earthly world often enough).

I leave tonight and there are no immediate plans for me to come back, unless I am ‘summoned” to.

I do not have any concrete plans on how to spend the rest of today and I am sorely tempted to go sit with her, hold her hand and do what Gwen did many thousand miles away with the babies Jemima and Ezaye.

I am sorely tempted to sit with her, hold her hand and sing in English:

Do you want to go to my Father’s house,

to my Father’s house, to my Father’s house?

Do you want to go, to my father’s house?

It has joy, joy, joy.

Honestly, if I thought my words had any clout with God at all, I would spend the rest of the day, the week, the month to do this daily with her until He hears our prayers. Instead, I guess the best that I can do for now is to simply ask:

God – let this cup pass from her…

Good Ole Days

It's the first day of the lunar new year and it has been a non-stop day at my grandma's house.

What fascinates me is this: Grandma is now well into her nineties, wheel-chair bound. But it doesn't stop people who are my relatives from coming by, in whatever stage of their golden years, and paying their respect and new year wishes to her.

For the better part of the day, the household has been kept busy as distant uncles, thrice-removed cousins and even the neighbours come through our gate, bearing gifts of mandarin oranges and red packets of money gifts, to see grandma.

And I am fascinated simply cos it is a tradition that is almost dead. I have yet to personally wish any of my friends, and vice versa. Ask me if I'm doing any visiting - my reply would be a simple - Who is there to visit?

The good ole days where weeks before the lunar new year starts, these sames relations would come bearing baskets of food and all, have come and gone. It would be something that my children would not understand nor appreciate.

I supppose, this pang of melancholy is enough to make me reflect, if perhaps, it might be something I might want to introduce into their lives. Would it be enough to bring back the good ole days?

Degrees of Belief

I am stressed. You'd only have to take a look at the skin on my arms to know the degree at which I am stricken with anxiety. And the race has not even officially begun. Yet, I am already having sneezing fits from hay fever, interrupted sleep plagued by all sorts of nonsensical dream (tho' a reoccurring one of me having problems with home renovation is nice to have!) and the endless glum that something - anything - can and will go wrong.

I know my folks and friends will say - just go through the motions, everything is already there for the receiving. Yet, I cannot help but worry and doubt and fear.

Our resident priest writes a weekly thingy in the church's bulletin. And his this week was one that made me almost one to cry. As he writes about the fears that grips our souls, he also confesses that at age 80+ and wheel-chair dependent, his greatest fear is of falling - finding himself on the cold cement floor of the bathroom or at the end of the corridor where no one can hear him call for help.

And I look at Father Voile. And then I look at my folks who live off whatever small fruits that God bestows on them. And then I look at the pages I read - of Troy and Tara, of Gwenn and most recently of Gwenn's mother, and I hang my head in shame. For their fears are so much more real than mine - which I do admit to a certain degree, stems from my lil maggot in the head.

We all have different degrees of belief. I can only pray that as I journey along, with the support from both Heaven and earth, the depths of mine will only grow deeper.

Ain't It A Good Thing?

Mandy was doing a virtual twirling taunt yesterday morning as she learnt of what's on my playlist. And in the mêlée of a Tuesday-thinking-it-was-a-Monday, I couldn't sweep her tease away.

I think having been through so many dark days and nights, it is a good thing when your BFF proclaims that you're in love. And it's a really good thing considering that it's been a while to be in this state, with the same person.

You make me smile like the sun

Fall out of bed, sing like bird

Dizzy in my head, spin like a record

Crazy on a Sunday night

You make me dance like a fool

Forget how to breathe

Shine like gold, buzz like a bee

Just the thought of you can drive me wild

Ohh, you make me smile

So yes Mandy - you get digging rights here without any protest.

Onions

Like an onion, every layer reveals a different taste and texture. I've never thought of myself akin to an onion. But I've been proved wrong. Every once in a while, it is good for the soul to be reminded that people can and will surprise you when you let them. Thank you ... for letting me know nothing escapes you even though it's the most unconventional story we're living.