Wednesday 18 April 2012

dad

Tomorrow will be 19 years.  19 years since Dad died.  I still miss him.
I got closer to him the year before he died as we moved to Singapore from Malaysia to make it easier for both my kids to go to school .  We  didn't want both the kids to be going through the daily run on the causeway shuttling between Singapore and Johor, just to attend school.
I also started work, we had our own employment agency, and I managed it for the ex.  So we stayed with Mum and Dad for a year.
My sons would go to school and come home everyday to find my dad waiting for them for lunch.  He would torture them, like all granddads would do, by making them eat all their vegetables.  I came home one day from work to find son no 1 sitting outside sulking.  He hadn't eaten his tomatoes at lunch, so he was told to sit outside as punishment till he ate them.  he didn't eat them and finally Dad relented and let him back in!
They did get on though, my boys adored him.  He would watch football with them, the Euro cup in 92', and they (son no 1 and dad) would go out late at night to go eat supper at the 24 hours prata place close by.  Or the time they all wanted to sleep in the verandah, all three of them with mattresses lying outside with the mosquitoes.
Dad was already very ill then, we knew that he was dying and he spent alot of time in hospital as well.  By January of 1993, he was given a few months to live, he didn't tell us, his doctor didn't tell us.  We only figured it out in March when his condition worsened.  Apart from the stress of  my ex stirring up shit within my family about inheritance, we had to deal with finally coming to terms with the fact that dad was dying, he really was going to go.  He slipped into a coma on Saturday 17th April and in the early hours of 19th April,  he died.  My brother, my older sister, her husband, my cousin, dads younger brother, me, my ex, we all stayed in the room on the 18th night as the doctor had said that it was close to the end.  We watched the monitors, the heart rate slowly dropping, lower and lower it went, and finally flat lined.  Dad already had signed  a DNR, so the nurses came in and let us say goodbye before ushering us out to remove all the tubes.
We cremated dad the same day in the afternoon at Mount Vernon crematorium.  Dad had wanted a simple funeral, no fuss, he didn't want his body to be taken home for people to mourn him.  
I didn't cry, I was in shock I guess.  I took over the kitchen, Punjabi's have 10 days of prayer at home when someone dies, and we have to feed people everyday till we finally end the prayers in the temple.  So I took over the planning of the meals and cooking, making tea (masala tea by the bucket loads) and making sure everyone was fed.  I couldn't break down and cry or fall apart as someone had to handle the kitchen as my older sister was handling Mum and all the other arrangements. 

He wasn't the best dad in the world, he made a whole lot of mistakes but he was my dad and I miss him.... alot.


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