A little goodbye message
Reading Cel's & Pat's recent lj entries, I felt I should write one too - but at this moment, I really don't know how to possibly express grief, relief, comfort and hope in words.
I haven't been the best of friends to Christine & whilst I expressed my detailed sentiments in an email to a friend, I want to write here that even though outwardly I look stoic, aloof, cold, distant and have other traits that make people think I create a wall/barrier, the reason I do so is because once I get too emotionally involved in a friendship/person, any pain or sufferring grieves me. It is hard to let your friend hold the power and ability to tear your heart into pieces. And maybe because I know how much pain, treatments, internal fighting Christine has been going through for so long, I find it even harder to be closer to her - simply because I cannot bear the fact that one day, my friend may lose the battle she has fought her entire life.
Most of my emotions have already been repressed and as someone who doesn't grieve at departures (only guys cause me grief - I know it really should be the other way around), I feel relieved that she is in a place of comfort now, sans suffering and watching over her own family from above. We can only now hope that other patients with a plight similar to her's can find the strength to fight on and avoid ethical traps of a life support system where the patient's family will be in a dilemna of a) prolonging life, even if it means increasing the sufferings of the victim (a feeling that doesn't show when one is in coma, vegetative state or heavy sedation) or b) the act of mercy killing and/or euthanesia.
Goodbye Christine. I sometimes reproach myself for not being there for you but I hoped that you've read the note in the little notebook I gave you and heard what we said (pat & kenneth) when we visited you on Sat. I'm glad I didn't procrastinate this time (after failing to visit you before I went to China) because I won't be able to live with the fact that I didn't seize the opportunity/taken time off for somebody more precious than daily vicissitudes of life.
You'll be missed.