I am physically and mentally tired.Too tired to think and write. Too tired to do anything but to let my finger writes what it wants. And my first thoughts are of my late Father.
We were never the best of friends. His generation did things different from ours. There was always love and respect between us - and all was good for as long as I know my place in the order of things....which is we do things his way or it is the highway for me!
He prays in his room and what I did in mine was my business. If I was in his house and he was getting ready to go to the mosque for
Friday prayers...it was understood that I would tag along.
When he was home we never have our meals without his presence. I never sit when he is standing. Never sit at a level higher than he is sitting. And when we are walking, unless he indicates otherwise, I walk respectfully behind him.
In the morning I will take the Straits Time and place it where I know he will find it and leave it there until he has read it first. And when he is about to leave for office or comes home from work, we, his children, would rush to take his briefcase from him and carry it to his car or into the house as the occasion demands.
When he passed away many years ago the lesson I have learned most about life from him is this : First above all else is family. Then go do what you want with your life and be man enough to take what comes your way. He lived his life that way and I have lived mine the same way. We would have much to talked about if we ever meet again in whatever world that is out there.
I am physically tired too. After my wife stay in St Vincent I have now been educated by all those wonderful nurses and doctors there as to how to take care of my wife they way that she should be taken care of - the right way. Unfortunately the right way means that I have to relearned almost everything that I have grown accustomed to doing for my wife before St Vincent.
For a start while it previously took around forty five minutes to get her up from bed to being ready for breakfast, now days after St Vincent, it takes only twenty minutes. But twenty minutes of steady physical effort to do so. That asks more of me physically than the previous forty five minutes when I could stop, rest and even have a cup of Nescafe if I needed one to wake me up during that forty five minutes.-
No such things now....because the longer any activity takes the more it stresses my wife - so when I start anything I do not stop until it is done. My back hurts, by legs aches and my physical self is a wreck....but over time I know it will only get better as I get familiar with the new routine. The immediate rewards for me and my son is to see her happier and more responsive to the things around her. The other day she pulled the towel to cover her body as I was giving her a sponge bath on her bed.....whether it was because she was feeling a bit cold or she wanted to be a bit more decent is beyond her ability to tell me....but she did react to a situation that was bothering her! And that was a good thing as far as I am concern!
As tired as I am now I still cannot sleep. It is now 11.30 pm and I never go to sleep until much much later as these are normally my best times to write. But as I have said earlier I am too mentally tired to write about the things happening in KL and elsewhere...so I let my mind meander wherever it wants to do.
Right now I am taking five and going to the kitchen to make myself a cappuccino. Whether I come back to write some more is moot. So I take my leave for now.