I had a mother who cried with me.

Every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad. Some people believe that holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more courage to know when to let go and then do it. Alas, I am still grieving with so much pain. I held on and hung in there once before with a believe. So what good is great strength when my only courage was merely deception born out of the great fear to let go? “All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune makes for a finer and nobler type of manhood” so says an English dictum. All so true only if the pain is ours alone to suffer…so says I. As in the physical world, so in the spiritual world, I used to believe that pain does not last forever. All that change now when she left me with no mother to call out for.

For forty-four years I know not of any other hands that rocked my cradle. That very same hands that I held in mine when you sought comfort in sharing those deep dark secrets of your pain. How could I not sense your fear, how could I not fear for your pain; and how could it not pain me to feel you suffer. You taught me that death is nothing to be feared; it is merely a stage of transition. The gift of life, for all the effort and pain it involves, is too beautiful and precious for us to grow tired of it. But what’s real was those many nights I spent by your side; those nights that you agonized for a wink of sleep, those nights that we cried together because your pain was yours alone to suffer, those nights that I could do no right to ease your discomfort nor could I do no more to comfort your misery, those night that you made me promise to save you from the surgical scalpel of your impending bypass operation; and that very night – against my will, I relented. When you left the hospital, I pretended like I knew nothing of it. That you have a date with destiny, I am only too aware. I once had a hope that you could help me relived that glorious childhood; those that you cherished with so much loves, cared with so much respects and raised with so much tenderness that I never would want to outgrow. That hope now is but a broken dream. On the early Tuesday morning of 25th July 2006, just the way you had wanted it, I wasn’t there to see you off. Fearless, you embarked on your painless journey and left us all.

Some are able to release grief far more quickly than others. However long it takes, it is always the re-connection with the power of the heart that moves you past grief. It becomes a matter of how soon you want the sun to shine. Listening to the still, small voice in my heart, I still call for you Mak. Your heart is a deep abyss at the bottom of which I can always find love, forgiveness and guidance. I know not of any other mother other than you – that it was the most convenient choice of escape from the burden of your sufferings, I can only grieves in prayers that you’d be there around me at any time that I may need you most.

They say that man is mighty,

Is the hand that rules my world.

If there is one thing that we could do together now, I want to cry again with you. And if the choice was up to me, I wish I’d died before you and may God grant me a comeback as one of your tears. What son would be so lucky as to have been conceived from your heart, born in your eyes, live on your cheeks, and die at your lips. That no longer being the case now, I shall brace myself to my calling, and so bear myself that if God grants me a thousand years to live, I will still say: “I shared my finest hours with you.”