The last 365 days have gone in what seems like a blink of an eye where the 18th of June, 2003 was another summer’s night just like the one tonight with it’s clear sky and cool, fresh air where the calmness was broken with by a phone call from my father, just gone midnight to tell me that mother had passed away peacefully.
So the mother whom was like an eternal pillar to me; nursing me as an infant, seeing me through my childhood and instilling me with the life skills so that I could grow to be an adult… had to go her separate way. My memories of that night were of it all feeling so unreal as for over 6 months she dealt with her terminal illness as if she was not afflicted at all, though in the last week or so she did require admittance to the Cynthia Spencer Hospice due to her declining condition and was starting to have trouble speaking as the cancer had spread in such a way that it was affecting her vocal tract.
I had visited her with my father earlier the day before, the 17th and she had already slipped into a coma though according to the nurses still lucid enough to hear us both as we sat by her bedside and comforted her in what way we could. The hours passed and as it approached 8 p.m., my father eventually persuaded me that there was little we could do now and that I really should get back home to grab some food and could visit again in the morning, though little did I know that would be the last time I was to see my mother alive.
Waking up some time approaching noon having gone through a rather emotional night, I quickly marked up the memoriam page; double checking it with father for its content, to effectively close this site, before he headed back to the hospice to collect mother’s things.
So much has happened in my life in the last year where I’m sure she’d be thrilled to hear about such as starting a new job which I’m very much enjoying or travelling abroad for the first time since coming to England back in 1990 to visit a dear friend.
Mother’s funeral was held on the 30th of June, 2003 with the eulogy was delivered by father and it was a small, private yet dignified service. A month or so prior her death, she confided to me that she wished to be cremated and have her ashes sent back to Hong Kong so that they could be scattered into the harbour by the Star Ferry Terminus, which we managed to fulfil with assistance of my uncle whom still lives in Hong Kong. Her reason for her wishes was just simply:
I wish to be a free spirit again…
So with my own wish of taking him back to Hong Kong, before father gets too frail to travel, for as a short visit to pay his respects to a wife he loves dearly and to set foot on a little corner of the world which he truly calls his home. I have every intention of making it happen… somehow.