Stories of my mother...

I realize I haven't said anything about my mother in a while now.

That's a good thing actually. It means that nothing has happened of late that been so overwhelming that I am compelled to write about it. I realize that this is one of the best years we've had with regards to my mother's well being. No mental relapses, no running away, no fighting against medication. She has been behaving well.

A far cry from the turbulent times of the previous years really. I don't quite know how or what to share with people when talking about my mother sometimes.

The facts are often the easiest to tell; she suffered from depression then schizophrenia. Her husband left her for another woman. Her children was taking away from her. She spent 12 years of her life alone, penniless and wishing every single day that her children were with her. Her children grew up and took her in to their home but she ran away repeatedly out of some impulse deeply ingrained in her mind. She spend almost a year living on the streets with nothing but the cloths on her back and random useless items seemed adamant on carrying with her. She was hit by a lorry and left for dead in a pool of her own blood. But she did not die. She lived, and her sons took her in, swearing to do whatever it took to keep her safe from now on. She now lives in a shelter home and spends her weekends with them and she badgers them every single week to take her out.

But God knows in between those half a dozen lines, so much more has happened.

Hospital admissions were always painful. How do you explain how it feels when you are torn between letting her go at her will, or forcefully admitting her into a hospital for her own good? "If you love me, you would not do this to me." she once said to me. "Because I love you, I need to do this." I said. But she just looked at me, full of scorn and anger. In that state, I knew she would not understand my reasoning. She was not well. I knew I wasn't supposed to take her words to heart. But it still hurt.

Forcing medication was also a traumatic experience. I had to be home every single night at a specific hour to give her her medicines. I would give her the tablets and the cup of water and watch her swallow them. Then I'd make her stick her tongue out and inspect that she had no secretly hid in underneath her tongue or in the cup. I could never keep my eye off her too while she was holding the medicine. Half a second was all it took to quietly fling the tablet far away. It got worse when she openly refused. An hour of shouting, screaming, pleading, negotiating, reasoning still ultimately ended in us having to physically force feed her. I felt more like a prison guard than a son.

Her being missing was perhaps the worse. There was this one period in my life where I wasn't even sure if she was alive. I knew she was homeless. I knew she was penniless. I knew she was living on the streets. I just didn't how long she would last. I dreaded the sight of any homeless people on the street, because it reminded me of her. She would usually call. But there had not been one from her for over 2 months. My brother and I made a missing persons report at the nearby police station. The police obliged, but with her being mentally ill and no ID on her, they might not even know it's her even if they did find her. My heart wasn't quite ready for the worst possibility, though I certainly thought about it. Every Sunday, there was only one prayer on in my heart. "Let her be safe and alive, dear God."

But like I said, these are stories from earlier years. There has been none of it this year and it has turn out to be one of the least traumatic years I've had in recent times. Hopefully, the worst is over.

These days, I'm content to just chatting with her more about embarrassing childhood moments and her younger days as a staff nurse. We take her out to shopping malls for dinners and buying groceries. If you see a 20 something Chinese dude walking around Midvalley with a middle aged lady clinging on to his hands with and walking with a slight limp, that's us. All wounds need time to heal and to me this was our period of healing. 

For the moment, life seems pretty alright.