Forthnights

A Loving Rebuke

"Do the right thing.." I was told...

If only it was so easy.. or so simple...

I was catching up and chatting with an old friend..... and it came up. Where's your mother? "In a nursing home" I confessed. I was about to go into the details..... expecting my friend would listen and emphatized... But I got none of that....

"Do the right thing" she said... She didn't want to hear the details, she didn't need to... "Regardless of what has happened over the last few years (which she has been totally unaware of), NOTHING justifies putting your mother in a nursing home. I know you must have been through a lot. Everyone has their own struggles in life. I don't care how many times she has run away... she is your mother. Can you imagine if your children did that to you."

I stayed completely silent. The words pierced right through my heart. This was something that has been on my mind ever since day one. Putting your parents in any sort of nursing home is never an honourable thing to do. Deep down, I sometimes felt that I was taking the easy way out in just sending her to a home, instead of taking the bull by the horn and taking her home with me.... But of course, there were always reasons, some almost legitimate why putting her in the home was better... but then again.. I wonder to myself if they were really good reasons, or just excuses we made up to ourselves to make us feel better.

My ears burnt...... To hear your inner most thoughts being so bluntly and openly spoken by a friend was not easy to swallow. No complicated reasoning, no details and analysis on what the best course of action...... Just the fact that me, as a son, had just sent my mother away to stay in a home instead of together with her.

My first instinct was to defend myself. Its not like we have never tried. I have.. so hard.. The first time when I was just 13... One trip up north to visit my mother, I got so emotional, so convicted by my guilt conscience that when i got back, I got my father to the table and told him "I want to move out. I want to go stay with my mother and take care of her since none of your are willing to do it."... This sent my father into a panic.. not wanting me to change school and leave everything behind.. He offered a compromise.. Bring my mother to KL... We would rent a flat, he would pay for it.... and my mother, my brother and I would stay together. I agreed. It was a good compromise. I felt that I had finally did the right thing. If I had not, things would have just gone on the way they were with my mother neglected. After about 6 months of living together... my mother took off. She swollowed 30 of her pills... I personally hospitalized her and stayed with her. After that, she took off and did not want to come back again. That was exactly 9 years ago. I remember because it was her birthday, 2nd March, last weekend.

Many many years later, college students about to graduate, we lived together again, though noithing much changed. She was still resistant and fighting medicine refusing to willingly take. W stayed togther, for about 8 months... Those were trying times. There was only my brother and I to watch over her and take care of her.. To make sure she took her pills. And despite all our diligience, she still went into relapses. That was when things always got worse. I could never handle the relapses. It just took so much out of me emotionally... having to deal with it.

And now, after her latest return, my brother and I amicably decided that the nursing home was the best asnwer. We were both working.. We no longer rented our own home... and we had no one to watch over her full time. Even if we could hire some maid to watch over her, the maid would still be ill qualified and ill equiped to handle my mother.

Till now, I still doubt it my heart if what we do is right. My mother of course harbours the hope that we would eventually take her out to live with us. I have discussed this with my brother and we are both agreeable.. But when is the right time? Who would she live with? How to arrange for someone to care for her? Can that person handle her? How do we know she will not run away agian? How do we ensure that she never does again? Who will bear the cost of it all? That is just with regards to my mother..

What about my girlfriend? We are at that stage in our relationship where marriage is the next thing in line.. But can she handle my mother? In her own admission.. NO. She knows my mother would prefer to stay with me, her younger one. But in my heart I know that these 2 cannot come together. As of now, she has not the strenght or the heart to deal with my mother, and I doubt this will change in the future. I do not blame her... Its a heavy burden to shoulder, and it really can and will tests a person right to the brink of their sanity. I cannot risk that on her. What more, she too has a mother she needs to think of.. Having only a younger brother (also living with me)... it lies squarely on her shoulders to take care of her mother in old age. How do the two of us.. both take in our mothers... both having psychiatric conditions? That's the real question.

Of course, in just a slit second.. all these thoughts ran through my head... as I kept silent against my friends rebuke. Over the years, I have learned to appreciate and accept these directness from people not afraid to say it as it is... though it has never been easy on the ears.. or the heart. Its better, and its when you know someone genuinely cares for you enough to say the right thing. (Though those who do the rebuking don't always take it well vice versa). She must have wondered what was behind my silence.. Maybe she thought she had overstepped the border.. But I was only gratefull for what she said.. even as I kept quiet.. ears burning.... feeling guilty and shameful at trying to defend myself....

I kept silent, and decided not to defend myself with any the things I thought above... Instead.. I just allowed her to continue rebuking me. I guess in some ways.. I felt that she was right..and that I deserved it..... I could reason and debate... I could argue and justify...... and perhaps even win and out talk her but nothing is more powerful and piercing than simple timeless truths. I had not done my part as a son. It is a disgraceful thing sending your mother to a home. How would my mother answer others when they asked her where she stayed?

Sigh... Lord forgive me for not honouring my mother. Give me the wisdom to see what is right.. and the strength to carry out what must be done.

posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 10:46 pm Comments: 0