Or maybe the title should be 'A Very Sobering Christmas' since 'sober' might give off a different connotation. But Christmas for me has never been a time to be induced with heavy liquor anyway.
What was sobering was my reality. The past couple of months in Singapore (I know I promised to blog about that but I had my reasons not to, and maybe I'll just expound a little bit on my 4.5 months there later) had sort of been a little getaway from the real life, my real life here in KL. And now that I'm back, I've had to land with both feet on the ground immediately.
This year, I spent a quiet Christmas with my family. I didn't go to any parties, nor organized any outings or meet ups or lunches or dinners. But this year's Christmas was the most resonant for me.
I spent Christmas with my grandmother. She's mostly bedridden now, a little bloated from water retention. She's still alert and conscious, but gets tired easily and sometimes is in pain. She puts on a smile for me and the others who come to see her, but in the quiet moments where there are no visitors, sometimes she struggles to expel her phlegm and I've seen her grimace in pain. Sometimes, I sit next to her and tell her about my day while she holds my hand. Other days, she asks me to scratch the bits of her skin that are itchy. The other day, I learned how to feed her through the tube. I told her "you used to feed me last time, now it's my turn to feed you" but she couldn't hear me without her hearing aid.
I wonder how long she has left. Some days her symptoms remind me of what my grandfather went through in the short time he had before he passed. Other days she shows me that she's not as bad as we think. Most of the time, I feel a little emotionless from all this, which is odd for me because I am the emotional type. My heart goes out to her with compassion, but I worry that that is all I feel - compassion, rather than love. I do love her I know that. Just sometimes the fact that I don't feel it makes me wonder if I really do.
This year, Christmas reminded me of my purpose and place. I know being at home and being in KL is where I am meant to be. My fulfilment isn't in the glory of another country or my independence; there's no glory in fact, just a sense of purposefulness through the people that make home 'home'.
