Forthnights

Thanks for your advice

I dont really know if sending my mother to my brothers place is a good option. For one, his place is in the middle of nowhere. The shops are far away, and its hard to get around without a car. She feels more comfortable staying here. That, plus the fact that my father has just moved in with my brother. To me, asking the 2 of them to stay together is a recipe for disaster.

The notion of sending her to the hospital has been brought up numerous times by my girlfriend as well as my brother. But i know that by doing it, it would break my mothers heart. No mother would want to be sent away from their children, by their own children, even if we say its for her own good. I have been giving her her medication regularly for the pass week, at quite a high dose. I dont know if its too early to say, but for the pass 2 days, she has shown lesser resistance when i give it to her. I hope the medicine is finally kicking in.

To me personally, though it gets to me and it really upsets me in every single way, i remain adamant about not sending her off to my brothers or the hospital just yet. Maybe its just some sort of self punishment, maybe its a sense of responsibility, or perhaps its me trying to make up for the past when i was never there by her side. I want to know and feel that i have truely done everything i can, with every fibre of my being for her before i pass the burden on to others.

I guess at some level, i want to be here in this situation. I want to be there facing the problem face on, to literally be there and support her and take care of her. Not just in name, or in the monetary sense. She gives me hell at times like these, but i keep thinking of a song by Michael Bolton she keeps on singing to me last time. It goes something like "I'd rather have bad times with you than good times with someone else." Yes, i could send her away, but i think deep down, i dont want to do it until i really need to. It is as much for my sake as it is for her.

The day will come when i go to study in the UK. My brother and i have not fully worked out the details of what will happen to her or how we are going to take care of her. But it will be his turn to face what i am facing now. I only how he will rise to the occasion. He has a good heart, but i sometimes doubt just how far he can be pushed before yielding emotionally. The memory of him breaking down and crying last year (was it last year? seems so long ago) still lingers in my mind. I worry for him, but i hope the strong faith that he has, which i lack so much, will carry him through.

What is in store for the future is hard to tell. I have voiced my intention to work offshore, in the oil and gas industry to my father. He says its up to me. I know the work is dangerous, and its the kind of life that not many people are willing to go through. To be out in sea for weeks on end, to risk your life in harsh working conditions. But to me, the rewards of the job will ensure that i can provide well for my family, for my mother, and myself. My motivation is undoubtly the cash. To be earning a 5 figure salary out of college is tempting. My friends dream of big cars, phones, holidays, and all sorts of things when thinking of working offshore. But i think of the good and proper treatment i wil be able to provide my mother in private hospitals, i think of the money i can repay my girlfriends aunt, my brother, my father and even my girlfriend. I think of the good start i can give myself and my future family if i work offshore, so that my family and my future children would not have to go through what i have gone through.

But the price of it is indeed costly, because it would mean that i am never around. I would be in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles away from civilization, away from those who matter the most to me. Then there is the danger of actually dying. Just last week, another helicopter on the way to the oil rig offshore crashed. 20 people survived, but the pilot died. A cold chill went down my spine. The third this year. Or at least, the third reported. These would be the kinds of danger i would have to face, and they are very real. When i spoke to one person who has actually done such jobs, he just told me "Every day, when you drive, you are at risk of dying too; and that risk is probably higher." Well, a good point there. More people die of car accidents than people in oil rigs.

Whether or not it will work out, i do not know. But deep down, i feel that what will happen depends on me. If my life is going to be different, if my life is going to be better, i have to do something. Not just let things happen. If i did nothing, i would just end up on the route everyone else has travelled on. Graduate, get a 9 to 5, buy a house, get married etc, buy a house, car, and land yourself in debt again. I could do that, and i might even feel contented. But something at the back of my mind just keeps bothering me, telling me "Make a difference. You are destined for more than just a life like so many others." Maybe its just wishful thinking on my part, but that poem by Robert Frost we all know so well just keeps coming to me.

posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 3:55 pm Comments: 0