IT has been nine years since and every time I look at the face trapped in the ornate frame that sits on my desk, the face that personifies kindness and love, my eyes would swell with tears, flowing recalcitrantly. A close member of my family was taken away, abruptly, leaving us grieving.
I have a vivid recollection of that very day, on a Sunday afternoon, when she asked me to drive with her and I did, quite happily, not knowing that the euphoria was to be short-lived.
Moments later, when she declared the inevitable, I sat there, numbed, refusing to believe anything she had told me. I was devastated.
At 35? Yes, she confirmed and we both cried, choking with occasional gasps. When finally, it dawned me that this beautiful creation of God in front of me was threatened with the dreaded breast cancer (BC), my reactions rebelled any logic and went on a whimsical series of outbursts. The eruption was the beginning of many more after that.
She had everything going for her, a great husband and children, a wonderful job and she was pursuing her PhD.
After being initiated into the horror of knowing she was diagnosed with Stage 4 BC, life was never the same again for the family, watching her being eaten away by the big C while her motivation to live started eroding, agonisingly.
Sometimes, the treatment would give us hope and yet at other times we were in denial, the pain and suffering greeted her daily with such vengeance that we would helplessly watch her being engulfed.
Along with modern treatment, she never left anything to chance and explored every alternative medicine that came her way. After months of chemo and radiation, there was nothing much left of her, only skin on bones.
She agreed to mastectomy at the early stages and I have a vivid recollection of her returning from the operating theatre and what greeted her at the side table was a horrific and crude reminder of her losing her identity as a woman. The glass cannister, with a part of her floating in some solution, broke her spirit.
I went red with anger on the insensitivity of the hospital staff and upon rebuke a nurse came by and took it away, rather reluctantly.
For two years after that she mostly struggled and yet tried to maintain a pretence sometimes so that the ray of hope, which was seen shining through the struggles, did not belie her. She finally called it quits on a fateful morning, having lost the battle after two and a half years.
Her last day and her last breath liberated her from the debilitating treatment and devastation of seeing life slip away slowly and surely, but I was just too cross with the Maker for the Angel belonged here, with her family, her young children needed her so badly.
I was deeply affected by the passing and for months and years the mere thought of her would leave me teary-eyed and as I write this, my eyes are gorged but I console myself that she is in a better place looking on us from above.
The demise transformed all of us in the family in a great many ways. For me, I began appreciating every bit of detail life has to offer, living the moment with celebration. The paradox is stark that I should have come to realise what life is on seeing death, but I suppose we all have that defining moment that causes irreversible change.
As they say, everything happens for a reason but I haven’t yet found the reason as to why her and why so soon.
On this occasion of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, observed globally in the month of October where the primary objective is to educate and create awareness of BC, losing a loved one to the Big “C” brings back gloomy memories and I know I am not alone.
It is said early detection increases one’s chances of survival and we have to take it upon ourselves to be on guard.
In Malaysia, statistics reveal that BC accounts for the highest among cancers at 17.3%. When detected and treated at Stage 1, there is a 90% survival chance and it drops to 70% at Stage 2. At Stages 3 and 4, treatment and survival gets trickier.
It is a fallacy that life will go on as much as it is to say time heals. Life will go on and time will heal but the pain is forever and as it grows incrementally, it becomes part of us and life.
Comment: letters@thesundaily.com
