Publicly Unveiled ... Thoughts in writing
Type: Continuous Writing
Loss and Found
It was raining heavily. I could not see the road. So I slowed down the car, fully aware of the danger of the situation. I could have stopped by the roadside yet I did not. An urgent phone call I received late that afternoon prompted me to leave for home as mother had fallen sick again.
Mother had a heart attack a few months ago in her quaint little kitchen. It shocked many of us since she had been relatively healthy throughout her life. Now that she had another attack, it began to worry me even more, which brings us back to the present situation where I am driving my trusty black sedan under the torrential rain.
For a few moments, a feeling of unease struck me. Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. A few second before impact, I was acutely aware that there was the sound of tires screeching on asphalt. It took me a few moments to realize that I was in wreckage, and another for me to realize that the warm sticky puddle surrounding me was my own life sustaining fluid. I heard someone shouting but I could not fathom what it was that the speaker tried to convey. My consciousness faded to black when an excruciating pain pierced my head.
The abyss was dark and lonely yet I felt strangely at home with it. I heard voices, scattered as they are, pleading for my return but I could not find the will. I vaguely heard a familiar voice calling me to open my eyes. After much difficulty –my eyes were leaden with fatigue; I finally managed to force my eyes to open. My sister’s face greeted me upon awakening. Through her, I found out the harsh reality –I had been in a coma for the past three months.
In that space of time, while I was dearly clinging to the tendrils of life, when the doctors proposed that my family should pull the plug and let me go with peace, my beloved mother had passed on to another life. The woman I cherished most, my childhood idol had left me forever. From what I had been told, her death was caused by a severe heart attack and the doctors could do nothing more than make her comfortable in her last moments. I felt emotionally shocked and numb. The trauma, both emotional and physical including selective amnesia led me to feel that my whole world had been torn into pieces and shattered beyond repair.
The first few months after I awoke from my coma, I could not remember what had happened. It was as if I was a shadow of my former self, a lifeless shell. Tears refused to fall. Physical therapy was just another routine, another useless thing in life. Throughout the whole ordeal, my sister was there even though she was also feeling the hurt inside her soul. She picked up the shattered pieces of my life and pieced them back together again. My sister did it even though her hand bled from the effort and the cut in her heart deepened even more. She was the one who buried mother when I was in a stupor and she was the one who gave me the gift of life after all that we have been through.
After a journey of pain and suffering, heartbreak and loss, I finally regained my former self. It might not be perfect but the real me is still there and for that, I thank God for all the blessings He has bestowed upon me. All that had happened, the journey I had embarked on only gave me a lesson in life and an experience so that I could become more thankful and appreciative of the life that the deity has gifted me. I have lost and found my reason for being in this world. Now, I shall head to the future, even brighter than before. This time, my sister will be right beside me to guide me; and my mother, urging on in spirits.
