On Why I Find It Hard…
1. As I walked into Customs, pushing the trolley laden with bags and boxes, waiting to declare my food items, the officer came up to me for a quick chat; to end the conversation with ‘Welcome back home’ as the winter chills started to creep in from the exit close by, ‘Hudsons Coffee’ peeking from the corner.
2. Huddled in a room sparsely littered with a group of Malay university students, taking a break from volunteer work, they asked me whether I will come home. I had feared that question, faced by a roomful of strangers; a knife could slice through the long pause it took, to answer, in an unintentional drawl that stood out amidst the silence, that ‘If you had asked me 6 years ago, I would have said yes. But that was a long time ago. Lots of things happen in 6 years.’ That memory, for some reason, replays itself. And I can not forget the response that came after.
3. In a corner, in between patients, my Consultant – an old friend of Mom’s – had asked me where my future would bring me. I said I was uncertain – for is that not the truth? – and that only time and circumstance could instruct me henceforth. ‘The arrangement would seem to work: your parents fly in and out, your other family members taking the occasional trip. But they would grow older, more distant, each step more difficult to take. Where they are, could you be there too? On their last breath, could you be there to whisper a prayer? Where then will you choose?’
4. In the staff tea room, I was sipping a warm cup of coffee, deep in conversation with Remo and Alison. They had listed out ways of universal suffrage for me to make my first million ‘in five years, Diyana! Think about it! Australia needs people like you; you’ll fit easily in. You should be one of us.’ I had drowned myself in those words, initially taken by the perceived compliment, only to taste the residual bitterness thereafter. Is it enough to have a sense of belonging? Have I just been yearning for a place to fit in? Who will then deserve to dictate these choices to me?
5. At night, I sometimes tiptoe to the kids’ rooms and watch them sleep. I seem to have a weakness for this; I love to embrace the vulnerability of someone in slumber. At times, I am certain it is when the person is at his purest; the mask of sleep revealing his inner soul. In some instances, I feel a sense of calmness – a feeling I always have when I am with family. Indeed, I am lucky to be blessed with two.
6. A mentally ill patient once told me, the hardest thing about her illness is that she could not see her child grow up; she could not appreciate the developmental milestones, their relationship fragmented at its best, evidenced by the toddler seeking someone else’s arms for comfort. I think of that often, as I peruse through the multitude of pictures and videos of my nieces. When I call home, I break the mood – now tinged with curiosity or unfamiliarity, I do not know – for my nieces would be quiet on the other line. As I tell those who care to listen: ‘I was not there when they were born, when they crawled, when they took their first steps and when they uttered their first words.‘ My brother never ceases to remind me this, his voice strained with streaks of pain.
7. Standing at a carpark 4 years ago, I had vowed never to step into another health care institution that was culturally alien to me (the irony, for I was on home soil). It was a dramatic affair: the clouds were gray, the air always humid, a stream of impatient humans creating a path around me. The rain had siphoned drops on my cheeks, a repetitive rhythmic pattern at my imaginative best. Don’t. Come. Back. Please! Many years, and indeed many more carparks later, I try to make sense of the situation. But I am unable to be convinced otherwise. For each time I return, I find many more reasons to leave.
