A Mother's Love

This blog was inspired by the journey of my friend, Chang, who valiantly fought for his life in cancer. He was determined to carve his own path and created a blog to document the many alternative therapies he tried. He passed away exactly three years to the day he was diagnosed.

Today, I decided to pay his mother a visit. Chang used to like buying her yamcake so I went searching for it but the stall sold only stuffed chee cheong fun today. I decided to get her some and a few paus for his father.

When I reached the house, she was pottering around at the front of the house, planting some ginger. We went in to talk and she dived straight into the conversation, reminiscing about her son. She started her story from the times before he went for the HIFU treatment in China. I know she tried very hard to be strong during his final days and even the days after he passed away. But today, she confessed that her heart is in knots. That she cries for him and thinks of him often. She is heartbroken.
 

We all grieve for his loss. Family and friends alike. But for a mother, the loss of a child is the most devastating loss. Though Chang spent more than 2 years preparing her for his death, which mother can accept the death of her child? No matter how one loses a child, whether by prolonged illness or sudden death, the loss of a child is perhaps the most profound, the most overwhelming, the most inconsolable of losses to deal with.

There are many reasons for this:-
It violates the natural order of things--your children are not supposed to die before you.
Your love for your child is unconditional and pure-perhaps the most profound of attachments you will ever have.
It evokes rage at the injustice of it all-- why should a good hearted person lose his potential and fail to see his dreams fulfilled?

Grief is a natural process we go through in order to heal. Though in some cultures due to strong religious practices, they say that grieving is not necessary. Instead they smile and celebrate a life well lived. Until we arrive at that stage, we will feel the pain of what we have lost. We are rudely awakened by the very impermanence of this world. Such is the reality of life.

We grieve for the loss of the close bond or connection, the mutual love and caring we derive from that relationship. We have come to depend on the presence of our loved one and feel lost without them. We feel the void left behind. This is because we have lost a source of either love, security, comfort or financial support, which was met by the deceased. We ache for this loss and it seems almost impossible to fill that void again. And at times, we feel too depressed to move on and to live again. However, we have to ask ourselves honestly whether our pain is because our loved one is now in a bad place or is it because we are crying for ourselves, losing the important source of love, comfort etc. 

Does our life revolve only around this person and is he/she the only one who meets our needs? Have we filled our lives with a circle of friends and family who can all provide for these needs in small measures? And most importantly, do we meet our own needs? Have we been that source of love and security for ourselves or have been relying on sources outside ourselves only? This would be the hardest of all, standing up for ourselves, loving and comforting ourselves. Giving to ourselves. No. I am not talking about selfishness. I am talking about unconditional love for ourselves.

The fact that some cultures are able to celebrate death suggests that there is an alternative way to view dying. What is life to you? Is death the end of everything? Or is the death we speak of merely the death of the physical container or body? Does your connection to your loved one disappear just by physical death? Or do you believe in more? For this is the time to draw on the strength of your beliefs and to transform that pain into something beautiful for you and your loved one.