The 50th post

It's finally fifty! I know that it's been a long hard road, but I have set out to remember who I was as a child and how I got here, and hopefully, I have grown up a little more for it.

Thank you all for following me on my journey and for your continued support.

To my family who will be reading this post, I am sorry if this travels close to the heart, but I think this is a very important part of who we were growing up. It wasn't easy but by the grace of God we got through it.

Every family goes through something sometimes, and what you're about to read is a little personal, so thank you for treating it with the respect it deserves.

Dad
I remember coming home one day from school as a boy of about seven, and my brother was excitedly recounting to me about how Pa had ended up in the hospital today.

I wasn't sure what to make of it, because the hospital had become a place that Pa had frequented of late, so it lasted in my attention span for all of five seconds before I went around doing my own silly seven year old thing (like sticking forks into power sockets and getting thrown back from the consequent electric shock).

Due to the surgery to his back, Pa could only manage to walk around with the help of a walker now, and poor Mum had to shuttle him to and fro from the hospital so much that it seemed to be our new second home.

But the hospital visit this time would be different, and I think they only told me about it later when they thought I was old enough to handle it.

Pa had tried to kill himself.

"There's a growth in your spine. We need to take it out."

This once proud King Scout, school volleyball player; this son of poor hospital attendants from Penang who had worked his way up into a better future for himself and his children, had been brought to his knees by something that was beyond his control.

"One of the complications of this spinal surgery is that we will actually have to get through some nerves to get to the growth, and you might get some weakness in your legs after, or lose your ability to walk altogether."

In the prime of his life, at the age of 37, Pa was reliant on a walker to help him walk around the house, and he would continue to get worse until he ended up in a wheelchair.

"But if we leave it alone and it continues to grow you will continue to have this back pain and lose your ability to walk ultimately."

He didn't know how to deal with it. He had lost his job because of this disability, the one thing that defined most men, and the future seemed all together too bleak.

In this moment of weakness, he drank some of the antiseptic lotion that was given by the hospital to try and take his own life.

My neighbour (whom we owe our lives to) was there when Dad was in the back room of the house, where he had locked himself in that morning. She heard a cry from the room and heard a thud , she jumped over her own fence, and called out my Dad's name

-'Cheok sang? Lei tim ah?'-

When he didn't respond, she started to panic, and rang my Mum to come home. My neighbour then knocked down the door to the room and found Pa on the floor, and tried to get him back up on the bed. Mum arrived home and was beside herself, and she rang the ambulance.

They got Pa to the hospital in time and managed to save him, but he was in there for a few days.

As a boy of seven, I had very little understanding about what was going on. When Pa returned a few days later, I didn't know how to worry, I was just happy to see him, thinking that it was just another routine visit to the hospital.
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I remember another night when I had stumbled into the kitchen, when the rest of the family was downstairs, and, in the harsh fluorescent glare, I saw Pa standing at his walker by the sink, his face looking up to heaven, his eyes scrunched, the kitchen knife in his right hand poised at his heart.

I rushed down and alerted my Mum who ran up the stairs into the kitchen. I stayed downstairs with my young siblings as we heard the commotion in the kitchen, as Mum screamed in panic, and wrestled the knife from Pa.

And they sat there in a heap, collapsed on the kitchen floor, crying, Mum trying to understand what Pa was doing, scolding him in her frustration. And Pa, not wanting to live.

Epilogue

It was only at his funeral fifteen years later that we understood another aspect of this part of our father's lives. One of our church elders was giving the eulogy at Pa's funeral, and didn't gloss over Pa's attempt on his own life.

"Yes, he did struggle with the disability and coming to terms with it at first," said the elder. "He had tried to take his own life" he continued, "but God had decided that it was not his time yet."

"Around the same time, one of our other church members was going through a difficult time and had tried to take her own life as well. I thought that there would be no one better than our brother Cheok to go and speak to her."

"And so he went to see her, and there he was - he started off with a joke, as was his nature, and got her comfortable. Soon they were talking like old friends, and after that meeting, I knew that both she and brother Cheok would be okay."

She was there that night at his funeral.

It was at that point that I realised that we belonged so much to this church - they had helped him through this difficult time where he was battling with his grief, and that they held pieces of his memory with them as well.

Pa was okay, because he stayed with us for another fifteen years after the incident, and came to terms with his disability. He was there to see my brother graduate and to see me get through the first bit of medical school.

'And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

-Revelation 21:3-4, New International Version-

This post is dedicated to the memory of my father, and to my family who shared this amazing journey, especially to Mum who had to be so strong for us.

I love you, Pa, and I miss you dearly.