Growing Pains

Endured bondage of unspeakable agonies

9.10.11

SOMETHING FOR YOU TO THINK, ONE DAY YOU MAY BE ABLE TO HELP OTHERS WHEN THEY FACE SUDDEN (OVERNIGHT TIME) CRISES SIMILARLY:

HOW TO HANDLE SUDDEN CRISES?

When your infants suddenly became so sick …… later became mentally or physically handicapped or invalid

When your daughter or son got raped … Emotionally invalid

When you got diagnosed with 4th stage cancer …. May leave this physical world soon

When you or your closest kindred ran into deadly accident …. Visit coffin shop?

When facing sudden crises, everyone drops their EQ and IQ to zero and soon faces depression, some simply fallen fainted and unconscious, but how to keep cool head and accept the facts instead of lament?

Two months ago when I visited my old folks, I told my son that was probably the last time to see her grand aunty and the family pet coli cot staying alive. When I saw my old aunt I gave her a piece of lightly sweeten carrot cake baked by my old classmate’s wife and my san ku was so happy because she was a diabetic patient, normally my parents wouldn’t give her such sweet treat.

She finally passed away yesterday with the faded sunset; I planned returning my hometown to attend her funeral but I was asked by someone who knows my darker side of face, “Don’t you hate her?”

“NO! I don’t hate her.” I never hated her; because I "rather think" that she was merely an unlucky “cursed” victim as well as me.

I could sense the moment she passed away even though it was only four hours later I found out the news; I was weeping right during the time she left this physical world. Suddenly I would cry over almost 40 years bondage of unspeakable pains, bad childhood memories and bad experience of being wrongfully accused as forever black sheep in relatives’ eyes (even up to these days some distance cousins still acted so hostile and threw condemning glances to me). My aunt in her middle age years was a rogue tongue story-maker and liar, although mentally handicapped she could trigger first family war to prolong later into consistently wars between my grandma and my mom through me as a medium.

I never ask a mentally handicapped aunty what and why the reason she dragged in a 7 years kid to provoke arrays of family fights? I witnessed my grandma and my aunt were always the winner but my parents were the only ones who always apologized even they were never wrong.

These days I learned to forgive my unreasonable deceased grandma. How many people knew my growing pains and agonies while they kept barking behind me to get me married off when I was reluctantly conformed just for their own respective selfish sake?

How many people know why I swore at 13 years old that I never wanted to get married to get into this kind of mother-in-law, aunty and daughter-in-law family problems? Do they know that even if I have married the painful past may still on and off returning to haunt me?

Even if my own parents died I think I would not cry, (I didn’t cry when both my maternal and paternal side grandmas died) but when my aunt died I could cry over my accumulated hidden pains brought by her. People mistakenly might think her decease could give me a relief, what they didn’t know was she was mentally handicapped as a curse passed to me; WHY ME? The true fact is I am now an emotionally handicapped person. I don’t miss much over my parents, sisters, husband and children, if I expressed to a person that I missed her /him that could be only when I was in emotionally healthy condition ot I was simply telling white lies.

My aunt was mentally handicapped since young; she only didn’t know what she was doing to me and to the rest of the people she had inflicted pains directly and indirectly on them. Before she died she was lucky enough to have my sensitive kind eldest sister staying by her side, the only one who would clean her dirty body and shits while even other relation or nurses would stay away from her.

Imagine in the early 1930s in lower Rejang, when people got sick there was no western medicine available; most people without knowledge of how to use the medical weeds and herbs and worst still they were mostly very poor immigrants from China - country pumpkins from China. Many weak and fragile ones died but my aunt survived after a high fever attack, the most painful experience would be my grandma who saw her daughter who was healthy, cute and pink but in overnight time her daughter could become a mentally handicapped girl for the rest of her life and that also brought the burden and depression to my grandma, she endured on the unspeakable suffer until her last breath and she passed her "only worry" to my parents (and my eldest sister) until my mentally handicapped aunt quitted her last breath yesterday.

No lucky mothers in this modern world would have the feel of my grandma razor pains in her hearts when she had to face a fact and fate to bring up a mentally handicapped girl, what grandma didn’t know was despite in this modern world of modern medicine but delay treatment due to a doctor’s wrong diagnostic for such high fever infants could also give unlucky mothers a similar tragic.

I vividly recalled when my two years old daughter had a croup, only God knew why my family doctor’s wife never picked up or replied my SOS call, and another doctor I brought her to see would give her a wrong diagnose, while I kept waiting for my family doctor’s reply, my eldest sister came in the rescue, she said, “If you don’t want to bring her to see a child specialist now, she may die tonight due to short of breath!” Or I think now she might face the similar fate like my poor aunty!

For the past few years I was worried or even I might have suffer a minor depression due to worry if my daughter’s croup has resulted her any minor mental handicap until my old parents and sister who take care of her now could proof to me that she could score 14 100% in a roll for her last semester kindergarten exams. I was lucky enough but I can always feel the razor pains of those mothers who have their kids suffered from physically handicapping unable them to live like normal kids. Wrong diagnostic and delayed treatment usually have brought such life-time suffering causing lots of resentments and regrets to handicapped victims’ parents and family members.

For more than 70 years my mentally handicapped aunt also suffered poverty, rude and robust treatments in this physical world, my grandma could leave this world peacefully it was because my dad promised her to take good care of his sister. I would have loved and cherished her differently if the adults in the family knew how to handle their own EQs and a mentally handicapped relation, if my aunt was exposed in American system of handicapped education, perhaps she wouldn’t have been so “stupid” as people described and thought of. I remember when I was merely 6 years old, she could bring me to visit nearby neighbors to pass through jungle paths, she never once mistakenly showed me the wrong red wild berries that could be eaten raw, she would teach me how to identify the another same red berry which was inedible and poison. So who said she was stupid? I merely think that she had bad memory and slightly lower IQ . Just because most of her sibling was smart, in comparison unfortunately she became a “stupid” one!

NOTE:

If your infant’s high fever continuously maintain or over 38 degrees for prolong hours even after taking the prescribed antibiotic and Panado (like more than 4 hours without any dropping or only with slight dropping); IMMEDIATELY you must send your infant to another child specialist for the second opinion. Use a cold wet tower to cover the head of the infant and don’t let him wear thick cloth.

Don't leave your very sick infant to your so called "experienced" mother-in-law or baby-sitter because you have to work.

If you are first time mommy, you are always inexperienced, you must always ask your elder sister or experienced "mommy" friends to come visit you if your infant's high fever persists, someone experience can make good decision for you when you are helpless and nervous.

Don't make your babies and infants sleep with aircond 8 hours/day. My children's health only improved after I fixed the whole house with ceiling fans. Use the air-cond to dehumidify bedroom only just before sleeping, after two hours you must switch off the air-cond, this will help you to save both your medical and SESCO bills.