The most painful Painkiller
I had it all before I turned 20. I was a 19 years old Malaysian Chinese boy who was married and had got a scholarship for higher studies in Australia. As Asian middle class parents, they tell you that overseas education is important if you want to make it big in life.
In 1980, the whole Malaysian Chinese family attended my graduation ceremony in Australia. They saw me flying my cap in the air. My grandma particularly felt happier and Mum had never been so proud of me.
They left for Malaysia and I stayed back to pursue my Masters in Australia. I was a star of the family now.
Everything had been well except Mum’s growing cancer. It had been becoming more and more painful. And there I was, an overseas educated, helpless guy who couldn't do anything to ease her pain.
Dad was trying not to tell me everything about her health so that I could concentrate on my studies. But at the back of my mind, I knew there was much more than I was aware of.
After my final exams, I went back home immediately, to see Mum. She was already bed ridden by that time. And that answered why Dad had been trying to hide from me.
Her health was deteriorating. She was losing weight. She was in pain. And by pain I mean hours and hours of endless, dark pain with an ear- numbing sound.
If you ask me, why was she in pain, I have to remind you that back in 1981, 37 years ago, there wasn't much that doctors could do except asking us to pray. Even the availability of morphine was restricted. Morphine is a strong painkiller and acts directly on the central nervous system to decrease the feeling of pain.
I was watching Mum groan in pain day in and out. I would sit by her, holding her hand. I could feel the roughness in her palms from years of housework & laundries. I would stroke her forehead telling her all will be fine and wipe her tears. In return, she would say that my presence was easing her pain but I know she was lying. Her cancer pain was excruciating. Sometimes, she would require 2- 3 morphine tablets when the pain became unbearable.
I spent nearly two weeks at home, mostly by her side. We talked about my childhood, about the world, even death and how much she missed watching me grow up. We talked for hours in her room overlooking the garden. Probably while growing up, I didn't get time to talk to her in such detail. Why do grown ups start talking less and thinking more.
I was seeing her die day by day. I would be holding her hand, telling her silently how much I loved her, as, as Asians you don't tell your parents that you love them.
That night on 31 Dec 1981, she was crying in pain. She said she couldn't bear it anymore. She asked for morphine. Dad put the last 2 tablets in my hands. And looking at her in agony, I knew that it wasn't going to be eased with just 1 tablet now. She needed more.
She was asking me for morphine. So, I did this. I made 4 pieces of 1 tablet and gave it to her, one by one and tricked her to believe that with 4 tablets, she would feel better.
Her suffering was becoming intolerable. She asked me for more morphine. But I kept holding on to the last one.
She kept struggling with the immense pain and begging me for morphine.….. she died. In pain. In front of me.
Her last words were (full of anger): “Give it all to me, I am dying”.
So there I was, with my mother’s dead body- stiff with pain, her eyes closed- still wet in tears, and a morphine tablet in my hand. She did not need it anymore.
She died the most painful death. With a painkiller in my hand.
For the world, 31 Dec 1981 marked an end of the year, but for me, it was the beginning of an era of guilt.
For me, Time stopped. I remain stuck in the last moment of my mother begging and I holding on to the last morphine.
I returned to Australia. I knew I had not just lost my mother, but a lot more. I could not eat, sleep or study or concentrate on married life.
The whole night, I would look at the ceiling with my eyes as fixed as a stone, asking myself, “Why didn't I give her the last morphine. Why did I hold it back”.
I would watch my wife sleep by my side, and I would be awake. I would cry secretly in the deep agony, asking the same question again and again, all night. How not only I lost my mother, but how much I hated myself for holding on to something that would have eased her pain in the last moments. I wanted to punish myself. In the worst way possible.
I finished my studies and started working for a big investment bank in Australia, but Mum’s teary face kept appearing in front of my eyes begging me for morphine.
I would see other mothers in the street and wished Mum was alive like them. I regretted that I could not buy gifts for her as I was a student then. Keep aside pampering her, I did not even fulfill her last wish.
I had nobody to ask forgiveness from. Mum was dead. She had left me. Forever. She was never returning. And, in her last moments, I chose to hold on to that tablet and watched her die in excruciating pain.
I wanted to call Dad and ask him why he let me take that crucial decision when he knew I was immature. Why didn't he do it himself?
But then, I kept myself in her shoes. He was a husband of a dying woman. He was seeing his partner dying for the last 5 years and every passing day was distancing him from his wife. He was far away from his sense of decision making and logical thinking.
It wasn't his deliberate mistake. So I forgave him. But that didn't mean that I could forgive myself. I hated myself. And I was dying from inside every day.
The guilt changed my appearance and anyone could tell from my face that I was at war with myself with me losing from both sides in every scenario.
Almost every night, I would dream of her. The pain of losing her manifested in different ways. Every morning I woke up with silent tears running down my cheeks. My wife, who slept beside me, like an outsider, didn't know the demons I was dealing with.
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After the 5 years, I went back to Malaysia to visit my father. He had remarried and was still living in the same house. Mum’s room became the guest room that nobody used. My father & his wife slept in another room.
In the afternoon I went with my father to visit Mum’s grave. I prayed silently – “Ma, I have come home to visit you.” I sat there and cried.
We had dinner at home. Dad asked me if I would sleep in Mum’s room which had been vacant all these years. I agreed. I looked from the window, at the garden- dried leaves all over. I knew I would be spending this night looking at the ceiling in this emptiness.
But, that night, I fell asleep. A deep slumber. Mum appeared in my dream.
I was lying down on the bed. I saw her walking towards me. She looked as young and beautiful as she did, just before she got sick. She was wearing her bright yellow burial dress. She sat down next to me on my bedside.
I told her that I miss her badly and feel so alone without her. I said; “I am sorry, Ma. I didn't give you the last morphine; you had to suffer so much because of me. I could have eased your pain but I didn't. I am in deep agony. I haven’t forgiven myself since”.
Her hands reached out to my temples. I felt the roughness of her thumbs stroking me with her fingers, comforting me while saying “Son, I forgive you. You don't have to punish yourself. You don't have to suffer anymore.”
I cried in her arms. Then, she very slowly faded away...
I know, this did not happen in real, but it was more than just a dream. She came back to life. Back to this world. For me... To free me... To redeem me… She had to come. That is what mothers do.
Next morning, I woke up. A thousand pounds lighter. Like a bird ready to fly, like a prisoner out of the prison after serving a long sentence, like someone just pulled off a big rock stuck in my heart, like someone was given a shelter in a stormy night.
I woke up, a different man. A free man. A man ready to live. I was forgiven. No more guilt. The stopped Time started to move again.
That night didn't just redeem me, but also gave me a goal- To help those suffering from cancer. I do not know how far I have succeeded, but I am on my way.
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Ambrose moved to Hong Kong 20 years ago and retired as the CEO of the same bank. He now works in the sphere of helping cancer patients.
After I read this story to him, he wiped his tears and held both of my hands and said, "Thank- you for writing this Pooja, I would pass on this story to my children and grandchildren".
P.S. Do not ask me how much I cried while writing his story
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