Al-Fatihah for Yayi
Location: Neither here nor there, just... trying to get some work done
Mood-of-the-day: Death in the family
It’s just after Hari Raya Aidilfitri and so it’s a bit overdue for a blog entry. I should write about how my blue-grey kebaya was perfect and the food was great (though I had not the tongue for lontong) and that even at my age, I still get Raya money and would soon be eyeing a set of comic books from Singapore that I hadn’t been able to afford since 2002. But that was not I’m writing about.
My Yayi was ill. Very, very ill. I can hardly imagine that it was less than a week when his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids gathering overwhelmingly around the Damansara Specialist room (to the point when the nurses had to be concern) and him sitting up and enjoying some of the shepherd pie I’ve made. And still referring me as anak Yam intead of my first name.
All too quickly he was transferred into intensive care of Universiti Hospital. I was not always so close to Yayi (being he had to divide his attention to over 30 grandkids or so, I lost count again!) but I’ve always admired him. There he was, the Johorian guy covered in breathing aid with an eerily familiar black screen that on TV it gose beep-beep-beep of his heartbeat.
The news came to me on the night before Aidilfitri’s Eve, sitting in front of the Astro on local TV1, waiting for the announcement of Raya’s moon sighting. I surprised myself that my first thought was denial. Yayi was a dude, a healthy, gardening his chillies, driving-his-Kancil dude. He’ll be in nazak and then he’ll get out of it and it won’t be so very much a miracle when it happens. It’ll be just so... Yayi.
I hated the Floor 12 where he was warded. There’s too many old people in the non-ICU rooms, with Deepavali treats. Yayi’s not old, just covered in 80 years worth of wrinkles. And now he’s covered in plastic tubes. Nobody’s allowed to go into that room unless they’re clean and wearing a face mask.
And even so, they least they can do is read the Surah Yassin or try to keep talking to him. That room was too small so I read mine outside. I was never very good at reading Al-Quran so I was way behind while relatives were finished and starting again. I guess a small of piece in me was still in denial, even after seeing him looking so... sleepy.
I was still reciting when Cik Faridah stood at my side and I looked up. Everybody had been ushered out of Yayi’s room by the night-shift nurses and there was that loud, one, lone, continuous beep. No television sound effects could had given me any more sickening feeling. By then the family entourage were filling up the corridor outside Yayi’s room.
A wall, a curtain cover and a team of nurses and one doctor separated Yayi and his bloodlines. How long did that one beep lasted? Ten minutes? Half-an-hour? I keep looking through the tiny slit of a door window and watching that black screen until someone covered it with the curtain. I was just outside the door and nurses kept coming in and going out, bring in mostly oxygen tanks.
I keep a better part of my attention to that big red trolley cabinet parked outside the room. On it was one of those balloon-type breathing tools that you squeeze repeatedly, adrenaline shots, drug cases and everything with child-proof and warning labels on it. No hospital staff touched the cabinet, and all completely ignored it. But it was right there, the only trolley outside an ICU of the whole Floor 12 corridor. If I were to give it a name, I say it’s the Last Aid Kit.
The beep did stopped and one of my aunts stopped crying. Everybody huddled to the doctor who got outside. There was no heart attack, just a dangerous drop in blood pressure and slow breathing. My grandfather was still okay then, but they still can’t do a dialysis to clean his blood until the pressure gets higher. So Yayi’s was only sleeping too deep. That sounds okay... a bit.
The later it got, the family split into those going home and those staying (my mom was staying definitely). It was either 11.35pm or 12.30am. As dad drove home, I dunno why I was feeling almost angry. Maybe because Aidilfitri was in two days and Yayi should have been at Batu Arang, just like last year. And the year before, and all the years back in Pontian.
He should be the guy walking out under the morning sun and welcoming everybody with that toothy smile of his and make everybody try to catch up with him in his Kancil through the pineapple infested country-side. He would lead the maaf-maafan and slip an RM5 in the hand as he tried to remember who’s who and "anak siapa?". After all the prayers and the food feast, he’ll go through the kitchen and reminded my second grandmother (married for a handful of years) to divide the food evenly for everybody to take home. He’ll wave until we couldn’t see each other anymore.
I didn’t sleep that night. And just as well because then I got the news as dad was ready to go back to the hospital again. His cell phone rang. Yayi had a another blood pressure drop. It was 2.35am on 13 November, last day of Ramadan.
Signed: *Ophie, Al-Fatihah for her Yayi...
Mood-of-the-day: Death in the family
It’s just after Hari Raya Aidilfitri and so it’s a bit overdue for a blog entry. I should write about how my blue-grey kebaya was perfect and the food was great (though I had not the tongue for lontong) and that even at my age, I still get Raya money and would soon be eyeing a set of comic books from Singapore that I hadn’t been able to afford since 2002. But that was not I’m writing about.
My Yayi was ill. Very, very ill. I can hardly imagine that it was less than a week when his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids gathering overwhelmingly around the Damansara Specialist room (to the point when the nurses had to be concern) and him sitting up and enjoying some of the shepherd pie I’ve made. And still referring me as anak Yam intead of my first name.
All too quickly he was transferred into intensive care of Universiti Hospital. I was not always so close to Yayi (being he had to divide his attention to over 30 grandkids or so, I lost count again!) but I’ve always admired him. There he was, the Johorian guy covered in breathing aid with an eerily familiar black screen that on TV it gose beep-beep-beep of his heartbeat.
The news came to me on the night before Aidilfitri’s Eve, sitting in front of the Astro on local TV1, waiting for the announcement of Raya’s moon sighting. I surprised myself that my first thought was denial. Yayi was a dude, a healthy, gardening his chillies, driving-his-Kancil dude. He’ll be in nazak and then he’ll get out of it and it won’t be so very much a miracle when it happens. It’ll be just so... Yayi.
I hated the Floor 12 where he was warded. There’s too many old people in the non-ICU rooms, with Deepavali treats. Yayi’s not old, just covered in 80 years worth of wrinkles. And now he’s covered in plastic tubes. Nobody’s allowed to go into that room unless they’re clean and wearing a face mask.
And even so, they least they can do is read the Surah Yassin or try to keep talking to him. That room was too small so I read mine outside. I was never very good at reading Al-Quran so I was way behind while relatives were finished and starting again. I guess a small of piece in me was still in denial, even after seeing him looking so... sleepy.
I was still reciting when Cik Faridah stood at my side and I looked up. Everybody had been ushered out of Yayi’s room by the night-shift nurses and there was that loud, one, lone, continuous beep. No television sound effects could had given me any more sickening feeling. By then the family entourage were filling up the corridor outside Yayi’s room.
A wall, a curtain cover and a team of nurses and one doctor separated Yayi and his bloodlines. How long did that one beep lasted? Ten minutes? Half-an-hour? I keep looking through the tiny slit of a door window and watching that black screen until someone covered it with the curtain. I was just outside the door and nurses kept coming in and going out, bring in mostly oxygen tanks.
I keep a better part of my attention to that big red trolley cabinet parked outside the room. On it was one of those balloon-type breathing tools that you squeeze repeatedly, adrenaline shots, drug cases and everything with child-proof and warning labels on it. No hospital staff touched the cabinet, and all completely ignored it. But it was right there, the only trolley outside an ICU of the whole Floor 12 corridor. If I were to give it a name, I say it’s the Last Aid Kit.
The beep did stopped and one of my aunts stopped crying. Everybody huddled to the doctor who got outside. There was no heart attack, just a dangerous drop in blood pressure and slow breathing. My grandfather was still okay then, but they still can’t do a dialysis to clean his blood until the pressure gets higher. So Yayi’s was only sleeping too deep. That sounds okay... a bit.
The later it got, the family split into those going home and those staying (my mom was staying definitely). It was either 11.35pm or 12.30am. As dad drove home, I dunno why I was feeling almost angry. Maybe because Aidilfitri was in two days and Yayi should have been at Batu Arang, just like last year. And the year before, and all the years back in Pontian.
He should be the guy walking out under the morning sun and welcoming everybody with that toothy smile of his and make everybody try to catch up with him in his Kancil through the pineapple infested country-side. He would lead the maaf-maafan and slip an RM5 in the hand as he tried to remember who’s who and "anak siapa?". After all the prayers and the food feast, he’ll go through the kitchen and reminded my second grandmother (married for a handful of years) to divide the food evenly for everybody to take home. He’ll wave until we couldn’t see each other anymore.
I didn’t sleep that night. And just as well because then I got the news as dad was ready to go back to the hospital again. His cell phone rang. Yayi had a another blood pressure drop. It was 2.35am on 13 November, last day of Ramadan.
Signed: *Ophie, Al-Fatihah for her Yayi...
Imagination shone on 11/22/2004 10:32:00 AM
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