Looking back, this year I had spent so much times in hospitals.
Well, we all had…
More than the last few years combine.
In brutal honesty, part of me wish this would stop. No more hospitals please, Lord. It’s too stressful, mentally draining and physically exhausting.
Yet here I am, sitting by the window facing a mall and an Ocean Park with my mother lays in hospital bed to my left.
She’s been hospitalized since 29th November from breathing problems. Results shows her lungs were half covered with fluids.
My father was just released from the hospital a couple of weeks prior and currently still doing outpatient treatment daily. My mother has been his ‘nurse’ at home so to have both parents ill really is hard for all of us the children.
Intensive Care Units’ Waiting Room really is one of the most depressing place to be. There’s just so much sadness and grief hanging in the air. There used to be an invisible bonds between families who stayed at these waiting rooms while their loved ones are battling their serious illness.
I first experienced this years ago as I spent so many nights for my Grandfather in the hospital.
Things are changing…
Actually, I just realized this when my father was hospitalized. There are more maids even hired caretakers than immediate families.
Yes, I understand everyone is busy in the big city. Time is money. Deadlines to catch, etc…etc…
Not for us!
Both my brothers are working full time and so am I but we managed to stretch our times to be with our parents. Even if the three of us have to take turns spending the night at the hospital. Even if that means we had to sleep on a thin creaky beds that hurt our backs. We rushed to the hospital after work. We take turns staying in the hospital during the days too.
Of course like many families here in Jakarta, we have helpers at home. We could easily ask them to come and watch our parents in the hospital while we sleep in our comfy beds at home. So why not, then? It just doesn’t feels right. That’s just not in our family’s cultures I guess. None of our parents asked us to stay, sometimes they even try to shoo us out.
Our parents must’ve raised us good. They instilled in us from early on and by living the message that families stick together.
So to hear other’s criticizing me or my brothers for spending so much times in the hospital deserves some bitch slaps, hard!
Work is important especially when you’re a single mom – I’ll be the first to admit that. But still, family comes first and in times like this sometimes you have no other choice but being by the sides of the people you love. And that my friends, is what I’m doing.
This family has been through so much this year yet we are surviving it all together. Tears filled coated with many of laughter wrapped up in an ever growing faith that God will let us sail through whatever it is life throw at us. We are together!
And that’s what matters most…
