Saturday, September 29, 2007

She is in her eighties, plagued with diabetes, as well as liver and kidney problems. She married him when she was still a teenager, and together they had a daughter and a son. Her son passed away suddenly when he was 14. He was out bowling with his friends and got into an accident; she never fully recovered from that loss. Her daughter married an Australian and emigrated there; they speak on the phone every day, but she still misses her.

2 years ago, they went to Australia to visit their daughter. He wanted to go to the ice skating rink, she told him not to because it was too cold, he insisted and she relented. He fell. He suffered a severe haemorrhage and the right half of his body was paralysed ever since. He can no longer talk or walk, he gets his nourishment through a feeding tube, and uses adult diapers for his excrement and a catether for his urine.

The two of them live with a maid in a 3-room HDB flat. She cares for him 24/7, feeding him, changing his diapers, talking to them though he is largely unable to respond. She wakes up 3, 4 times a night to check on him, sometimes because he is shouting out in pain, often because she is simply too worried about him to sleep in peace.

The first time I met her was during one of the pastoral care visits I was going on for my ministry. I was with another member of our ministry, who is a nurse. He had pulled out his feeding tube, and my friend helped to reinsert it. She asked me to help hold his head still while the feeding tube was being inserted through his nose, as he thrashed about, refusing to have it inserted. I flinched, and could not get a good grip on his head. She took over, closing her eyes, not bearing to look at him, but pleading with him, "please dear, please let her put the tube in for you, please be good, please bear with it, I know it is very painful, but please bear with it..."

Afterwards, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "I know why he keeps pulling his tube out. He thinks it is for oxygen. He feels that he is a burden to me and he wants to kill himself." Her voice cracked, and she started to cry.

Some days he becomes more lucid, and is able to sit up in a chair with some assistance. She would sit next to him and talk to him, holding his hand. Once, he reached up to pat her on the shoulder. She asked him how he felt, and he gave her a thumbs-up sign.

She prays every day that God will keep her alive as long as he lives so that she can take care of him. That is the reason for her existence, she says, to care for him. They've been married for more than half a century now, and she's had no regrets.

Their love has really been a great inspiration for me. I wish one day I could find that type of love, one that truly never falters in times of poverty or sickness or even in the face of death.

-- tee @ 12:02 am |