By ANU GAITHRI SUBRAMANIAM
Sickness can throw a spanner in the works. But it can also open one’s eyes to other things.
I ALWAYS assumed that in order to have a great journey, I had to be larger-than-life, grab every opportunity that came my way and take the bull by the horns.
That way, I would not miss out on anything. It was the only way to lead a fabulous life. Or so I thought.
Then I was hospitalised for exhaustion and gastric. I was so sick I could barely could lift my head, let alone think. Hooked to the drip, I found myself physically incapacitated. As family members and friends rallied around, I felt like a wreck because I’d been “sedated” by the doctors.
Following their bed-rest orders, my handphone, laptop and everything else were taken away from me.
It didn’t help that the nurses walked in and out of the room every now and then, pulling, pricking and “meddling” with me every other hour. I felt like screaming, only I was just too tired to do anything.
The first few days passed uneventfully, with the same routine of doctors walking in and out, studying me like I was a new breed of creature, and nurses dutifully taking down notes whenever they spoke. I was down in the dumps and wondered if it might be the beginning of hell.
But as days passed, I realised that my room was situated right where the sun shone through. I could see it rise each morning and disappear every evening. I marvelled at the big ball of fire, so magnificently placed.
I decided to stop reading the papers for a while in the mornings, so as to take a walk around the hospital compound. And then my lessons began.
I saw a child, barely 10 years old, wiping away her mother’s tears from her cot with a hand that was hooked to drips. I noticed a frail old man keeping vigil beside his wife, who was barely breathing but muttering something in Chinese, as if she was talking to him.
I eavesdropped on the nurses exchanging notes about their dreams and how they cheered and encouraged each other on in the otherwise depressing place.
As I walked towards the lobby I saw a couple avoiding each other as someone lay in a coma, a casualty of what seemed like a bad accident. I saw fear, but out of the corner of their eyes, they were watching each other cry.
As I turned to make my way out, three adult children were exchanging furious words about who would get the house, as an old lady wept softly. We locked eyes for a while but she quickly turned away before telling her children she had a headache.
As I walked back to my room I was dumbfounded by what I’d seen. Had I been so ignorant and wrapped up in my own world that I’d stopped caring about the people around me? Had I lost touch with my faith because I was looking out only for myself?
I remembered my young cousins complaining that I didn’t have time for them. I’d dismissed them as little kids moaning. I remembered my mother telling me I simply didn’t have time to try her cooking.
I recalled my brother’s disappointed face when I told him I would talk to him later, then made a mad dash out of the house. I recalled my dad’s face when I told him I could perfectly drive on my own. And I didn’t have the time for my aunts, who thought the world of me.
Yet, I had all the time in the world to “spare” for people who promised they would come, then simply not turn up. Even my best friend, who tolerated my “busyness”, seemed to have disappeared.
My priorities were in disarray and I knew I had to seriously do something about them before it was too late.
One day, after what seemed like years, I found myself sitting on the bed waiting patiently for my parents to come get me. My sickness had been cured, but it was my soul which had truly healed.
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