You'll never be ready for death...

It's been more than a month since my mom passed away. I got through the first few weeks just fine. But the past 2 weeks had been unbearable for me. I couldn't sleep well, I couldn't do anything well, I couldn't even work well.

There were so many things that reminded me of my mom and put me in misery. I cried in the office's restroom, I cried in the car while driving to work, I cried in church, I cried before I go to bed, I cried everywhere!! My mind is so full of her memories & so many questions why.

My church friend dreamed of her after she died, why didn't I?
My cousin dreamed of her before she died, why didn't I?
My neighbour had a picture with her before she got into the hospital, already so skinny... why couldn't I?
Her friend bought her favorite cake before she fell into coma (though she only managed to eat a spoonful), why didn't I?
My brother & father spent a couple of nights watching her in her hospital bed, why didn't I?
I could list a hundred more "whys" here but that won't help me get ouf of this misery.

Up until the moment that she went into coma, I always thought that somehow a miracle will happen. That we would have another Christmas together and another birthdays to celebrate. But it seemed that my fear of losing her was bigger than my love for her. I thought if I stayed by her side I wouldn't be able to hold my tears from flowing all the time, and I knew that seeing me crying also hurt her so much.

I guess the start of my restless days was what my father said to me while we were talking about her: "You children didn't know how much she was in pain cause she hid it from you. She didn't want to become a burden to you or make you sad. But I knew. I was the only one that she showed her most weak & painful side that you couldn't even imagine." That words hit me to the ground.

Even now I could still feel her small hands in mine when I helped her walk to the bathroom or to the bed. But why can't I remember her hands when she was still healthy.

I could still imagine her face when she was in pain and cold and asked me to put another blanket on her. But why is it so hard to remember her smiling face when we went to the mall or tried eating in a new restaurant?

I could still picture her skinny figure in her too big pyjama when we had dinner. But is it hard to remember the time when she complained that her dress was to tight on her.

I start losing her & my memories of "the good" her. And the thought is torturing me. And it makes me even more afraid...

I guess whatever the way, no matter how long you've been prepared to accept the worse... You'll be never be ready for death. Not ever.

LIVING LIFE TO THE FULLEST

Just a few hours after I published my last entry, my mom passed away. And I was only 10 minutes away from the hospital when she drew her last breath. My father, my younger brother, some relatives & my mom’s friends were there with her. She’s gone while they were singing and praying, at 6:50pm. They all said it was a peaceful & beautiful death. I just regretted for not being there at her last moment.

I got out from the office at 5pm sharp, when I got to the parking lot a text message from my brother came. He asked me to forget buying dinner for them and that my mom’s condition was worsened, I better hurry. So I tried to call him back to ask how bad has it become but he wouldn’t answer his mobile. My cousin called instead, saying that it’s still ok, I’d have time to get there to see her. But the traffic was unusually jammed everywhere. Tried to call everybody every 15 mins but no one picked up. I was getting suspicious. Then about 5 mins away from the hospital I got a call from my mom’s friends. Apparently, he received a text message about my mom’s passing away, since he just changed his number he didn’t know whose number it was and called me just to confirmed. I was at a loss. I screamed from the top of my lungs and tears fell from my eyes like waterfall. I was fortunate enough to have a friend in the car, she was going to see my mom too. The moment my car reached the hospital’s gate, I saw my relatives were already waiting for me. I ran all the way to my mom’s room, when I entered the door, my dad’s already waited and stretched out his hand to hold me. I cried like hell and screamed why she wouldn’t wait for me. My dad wouldn’t let me look at her before her body got cleaned up. Then I held her for the last time. Poured my tears over her face for sometime. After that, my brother came to me and hugged me tightly, saying that she still loves me even though she couldn’t wait for me. The family has arranged that her body won’t be brought home, but instead will stay at the hospital until the funeral on Wednesday (waiting for my mom’s brother & sister to come from Manado). I returned home to pick her best dress, her picture & her make-up. I could see that my dad was acting tough for me but deep down inside he’s broken.

The next 3 days was like a dream to me. I still found it hard to accept that my mother has left us despite our acknowledgment of her illness for the past 2 years. I still wanted to spend more time with her. There were several services held by her friends & our church. At those services, people testified about my mother, how she has touched & changed people in her life. And I suddenly felt like I never know my mother all this time.

I always hated my mother’s kindness towards people, I thought it’s too much. If she only has Rp 50.000,- in her pocket and she met someone who needed money, she would give it all to that person despite sharing it. If we have food at home & she felt that we wouldn’t eat them all, she would gave it away to the neighbors or anyone show up at home. I called her SANTA CLAUS. And I hated that part of her. But the truth was, without my knowledge (or my dad’s), she helped so many people out there, especially during her service with Abigail Group. I was so stunned to see that so many people wanted to testify her kindness & gentleness towards others during the services. Men, women, young, old… every one of them were wearing clothes & accessories that my mother bought them. They told stories about how my mom has changed & affected their lives. They all shed tears & felt the emptiness of losing her. I felt so ashamed for hating her the way that I did. I felt that I never tried to understand her at all. I cried even harder after hearing all that.

One week after she got out of the hospital on January, she was in the kitchen with my dad & I. She told us this: “God has blessed us so much during my hospitalization, and we should share the blessings with others. Please help me donate (some amount) to Abigail orphanage. They need the money more than we do.” My dad and I were looking at each other and said: “Yeah, we’ll do that later. More important thing is that you recover first now.” But she kept insisting on donating the money asap. Last Sunday, 6 days after her passing away, I finally gave the money to the orphanage. I felt relieved.

Another message that she told me while she was still able to talk normally was: “Don’t forget the people in church. Feed them, share with them. They all live by God’s grace only and we should be part of it.” I won’t forget this & will try my best to fulfill her wish. If she could do it and had been doing it, why can’t I?

I always told myself to live life to fullest, and felt that I was closer to that. But not until my mom’s gone that I realize how far away I am from living my life to the fullest. I still have empty holes here and there and not able to see the big picture. But my mom has lived her life to the fullest. And it was shown in other people’s life, not by her own words. Well I guess that’s the true meaning of the phrase. I hope you all will live your life to the fullest too.

HOW HARD IT IS TO WAIT...

Waiting for the life and death of somebody isn’t easy to deal with. Especially if it’s somebody you know very well and very close to. In this case, it’s my mother. She’s been falling into half coma since Friday morning, the day that she was supposed to return home and be with the family for the rest of her life. But it seemed that GOD had another plan for her and for us, her family.

Family & relatives had been staying at the hospital with us most of the time since then. We sang for her, we talked to her, we prayed with her. At one moment my father, brother & myself gathered together beside my mom’s bed. We took turns to talk to her, sang & prayed for her. We cried together and we could see that tears also fell from the corner of her eyes even though she couldn’t respond to us anymore. And before we did that, I had to console my father first, told him that he had to be prepared for whatever GOD wants to decide. And for the first time in my life I saw him crying hard and told me that he couldn’t let go because he could still hear her calling out to him, “PAPI, PAPI!”, that she’s still in pain, how his heart broke to see her so weak and vulnerable like that. I tried so hard no to let my tears fell freely. After that I went inside my mom’s hospital room and asked my uncle to talk to him.

For 3 consecutive days we would take turns in watching her. My dad would stayed at night, brother & I at noon until around 10pm. During those days, I’d go home with my brother or he would go home first (as he had to come earlier than me) so at least there’ll be someone with me when I got home.

But last night I had to leave the hospital early cause I had to work this morning. There were some stuff that I left unconfirmed on Friday when I heard about my mom’s condition. The moment I entered the darkened house, my heart beat so hard. When I entered my room and turned on the lights, all my defenses fell and I cried hard and loud. I screamed from the top my lungs and cried out her name. I yelled: “MAMI, KAKAK SUDAH PULANG!! MAMI, KAKAK KANGEN MAMI!!” ("Mami, I’m home!! Mami, I miss you!!”) It just suddenly dawned on me that my mom might not be there for me anymore. That she might not clean my bedroom anymore (and I would get mad at her cause I’d find trouble to find my stuff), she might not peeked into my room anymore to see whether I’m asleep or not and turn off my lights, she might not annoyed me by barging into my room anymore just to see what do I watch that made me laugh so loud. She might not searched for Naruto bedsheet for me anymore (now that I had 2 sets already), she might not call me at work anymore just to ask me to have a nice dinner after work with her, she might not call me at night anymore just to check how come I haven’t got home at 11pm (and usually I’d turn off my phone and lied that the battery ran out). There could be thousands of things that I could list down of the things that she wouldn’t do for me anymore. That’s when it started to hurt me deeply.

I don’t know how long will I be able to bear this… GOD still holds the privilege to do a miracle despite everything that we see. But if HE decides to call her home to heaven, we all pray that she wouldn’t be in pain & that her soul is saved.

5 more days to my holiday trip...

Aaaaah, already in a holiday mood! Thank God we have such a long holiday before Christmas though there isn't much that we can do anyway. My dad's side of family has decided to have our family's annual Christmas lunch at my house. They said they'll provide the food, the maid (to clean up the dishes & the house) and everything. The decision came up after considering my mom's condition. They were sure that my parents will go home directly after the Christmas service in the morning, which is true. Though the result from her last check-up on Tuesday was good, she's still needs lotsa rest, especially if the wound feels painful. There's no way we're risking her collapse somewhere far from home, even if it's at a relative's house.

Anyway, I found this cute Prince of Tennis band-aid at Heritage (^__^). It's very cute, isn't it... There's Fuji, Ryoma & Kikumaru's face on it. Too bad there's no Naruto band-aid, only Doraemon.

Ok folks, enjoy your holiday, I'll be here again shortly!!

Jingle Bells...

9 more days into December! And then it's Christmas time again... how fast time flies... This year the Youth Ministry isn't going to hold its own Christmas celebration as most of us in the committee are busy being involved in our church's Chrismas Service. Unlike previous years where I was always singing or acting or being the secretary, this year I "luckily" get the role to handle multimedia with one of the senior. With my limited knowledge on this field, I have to communicate a lot with the senior and also trying to find out more from the net (@_@). It's not gonna be easy, but it's always interesting to face a new challenge (^__^). We plan to start the cabling the night of Dec 23 after the night service, hopefully it will be done on Dec 24 evening, but we have to be in church on Christmas Day at 7am in the morning as the service starts at 9:30am. I'm thinking of getting aroom in ahotel nearby as there is no way I'm going home late & leave very early, would be too troublesome.

And I just found these pics last week! It's from last year's Youth Ministry Christmas, it was awesome! The theme was "White Christmas in Japan", we decorated our church with white cloth, paper lanterns & twigs... it was great. But the main attraction was the drama... we made a set of Japanese house on the stage, and we even made trailers that we aired every week in Sunday service to promote the program! If you see the pics, I played the role of an evil stepmother, Lady Maruka. Somehow, I always got this kinda role since I was in Sunday School hahaha Do I look that evil?

I bought the pink yukata for myself, the others were borrowed. The guys were wearing my father's yukata & happi. I had to ask my mom to search his entire closet to find those. The guy playing my husband wore the white/blue yukata while the guy playing the maid wore happi. The make up artist was late to so we girls had to do the make up on our own. They guys were hopeless, they did the make up on the last minute. Too bad I can't find better pics that could show the entire decoration and part of the drama.

It was a great celebration. We got to do something different & our pastor was also satisfied with the drama. The message that we were trying to show in the drama was FORGIVENESS. Oh, I also made a blunder. A few seconds before we enter the stage for the 1st scene, the soundman informed us that the PC that has our music score & naration was crashed, so the musicians had to do it live including the naration. The moment we entered the stage, my mind went blank! I just sat there and looked at the other player and said nothing. My mind was completely blank! hahahaha There was supposed some music playing and at a certain drum rolls I had to start my line. Hearing that the recording was crashed and the musicians were playing a totally different tune, I was clueless. I was saved by my "daughter", she took one good look at me and she knew I was lost, so she started with my line. As soon as I heard her, the scenario was back in my head and there was no more mistake until the drama ended v(^0^)v