"Life is so fragile, precious, and temporary."
Ethan is gone. He left us on 4 Nov 2007, his 161st day of stay since he was admitted into the hospital, his 176th day since he was born. He was just into his 5th month.
It was a Sunday when it ended. Just like how it had been a Sunday when it started, when we rushed him to Terence with his 1st Steph Aureaus infection. That seems like eons ago.
It’s now only 20 days since he’s gone.
Some days back, we were buying the hippo musical toy (the one that accompanied him thru his months at the hospital had been cremated with him so that his hippo friend will be with him) to hang at E’s niche, and I realized that my Kiddy Palace membership had expired. I was told to fill up the form for a new one. I came to the query about “number of kids”. I didn’t know what to write. As far as I am concerned, my “number of kids” is 2. But from KP’s point of view, they obviously want to know the number of kids I currently have, I suppose to gauge the amount of business they’ll get from me. So what should I write there? In the end, I left that empty.
Sometimes it just feels like a dream. It just feels some surreal. One year ago, I just found out that I was expecting E. We went through the whole cycle of pregnancy and delivery and having our sweet baby with us. We were a family of 4. And one year later, it is like the whole thing didn’t happen, bcos E’s not here with us, and we are back to just us and Ashley.
If it is not meant to be, why let him suffer so much?
There are many regrets.
I regret that I will never have the chance of holding him and bringing him out gai-gai, bcos for the 1st 2 weeks we were home in Punggol and for the rest of his short life, he was always in a hospital room hooked up to IVs. Plus he had to be isolated always, to prevent him from getting infections since there must be millions of bacteria, viruses and fungus out there that his body could not fight against.
I regret that we will never see that little guy grow up and prove us right that he will turn out a tall guy, given his long limbs and fingers. That he will probably play good basketball given his height. I regret that he did not have the chance to wear that blue NBA jumper suit that the NBA folks brought down specially for him from Shanghai.
I regret that his sister will never know him. That we will never see his personality develop as he grows. Though we’ve seen enough to know that for sure he is no push-over. That no way he cannot stand up to his equally fierce and bossy sister. He is a fire baby, just like Ashley.
I regret that he had to suffer all the number of times the docs had to prick him with needles to draw blood or set IV plugs. The actual pain is one thing, but I think the more terrifying thing is the anticipation of pain, of not knowing what they are going to do to you and how much it would hurt. I remember how he would be crying as we hold him down on the bed, looking at me as if asking why are you letting them do this to me, why are you not doing anything to stop it. And all I could do was to tell him I’m sorry, and that it will be over soon.
That, I think, is my greatest regret. Him being terrified. If I, a fully-grown adult, who knows how a needle prick feels like (it’s just like an ant bite, for a second, isn’t it), can have her heart beat faster and have her hands become just a little clammy before the needle goes in, what kind of terror must it be for a wee baby of his age and size, who does not understand what is going on?
It was during his last days while he was sedated in ICU that I looked back and realized that he had not smiled nor “talked” to me for a long time. He must have been feeling quite badly that he doesn’t want to smile anymore. He only fussed to be held, I guess only when he was held, he could be less afraid.
The night before he left, he began to de-saturate gradually. Every time we moved him, to change his position or change his soiled diapers, or do suction to clear his lungs/nose/mouth, he would take longer and longer to regain his oxygen saturation. It slided slowly, from mid-80s to barely 80, then to 70s, and then 60s in the early morning.
Up to that point, I had actually been still very certain that he will pull through. He had been there before, a couple of weeks back, and he had recovered hadn’t he? But as the number on the screen went down further and further, I finally realized that it was not going to go back up again. And as his oxygen saturation drops further, his heart rate will slow down, his blood pressure will go down, and that will be the end.
I wanted to hold him again for the last time as we say our goodbyes. We had not held him for weeks, since he went into the CICU on the ventilator. The doc and nurse helped disconnect him from the ventilator, and we took turns holding him. With him off his ventilator support, the numbers went down very quickly. And then he was gone.
We didn’t want him to feel any pain or discomfort, so he was sedated right to the end. We were told we needed to dress him, so Russ went home and brought his Levi’s gift set, and we had him dressed in his 1st and last little Levi’s jeans, tee and jacket. We also put on the Pooh mitten and bootie set that we just bought the afternoon before at Bugis.
After we got E’s death certificate done at the police post next door, the undertakers took him back to prepare him for the cremation the next day. There was not going to be a wake for him. No sin, you see, him being just a baby. No need for prayers and chanting for his soul.
Of the list of crematoriums and columbariums in Singapore, we thought that the Bright Hill Monastery sounds ideal, a peaceful serene resting place with the calming chanting of prayers.
That night, we texted friends about E’s demise. It was very hard to tell people that E was dead, even via text. Maybe it is the finality of it. We drew much comfort from the messages that came back, touched to know that many cared, from the various smses to the single awkward phone call that both parties didn’t know what to say, and the simple “take care, bro” said it all.
The CremationThe cremation the next morning was a really brief affair. Too brief, I feel. It was a rainy Monday morning, and the morning peak hour traffic with rain and accidents on PIE (yes, it was a typical working Monday; the world still goes on, with or without us) had our undertakers arriving very late for our booked “time slot”. They had Ethan in this beautiful white casket, baby-sized. It was heart-wrenching to see a baby-sized casket.
We placed his hippo stuffed toy with him inside the casket, along with the mittens/booties that his Por Por bought just the day before he died and never had the chance to wear, the cards that Chester and Chantel drew the night before for him, the sketch that Russ did of our little family plus the letter we wrote him, and white roses.
Then we barely had time to kiss him goodbye, and they closed the casket, the monks did a short chant, and he was cremated.
His Final Resting PlaceThe Bright Hill Columbarium consists of 3 areas: the downstairs non-aircon area is really old, dark and cramped with floor to ceiling shelves of urns placed in a 4-step manner much like rows of cinema seats; the upstairs aircon area also feels quite claustrophobic to me, with most of the niches taken up and belonging to old folks judging by the photos; and the least occupied, aircon, high-ceiling 60-year “leasehold” building.
You see, this is how it works. The cremation fee covers allocating a random storage space in the Downstairs area. If you want a better spot, you can purchase a better-situated niche in any of the 3 areas. Prices for a niche range from S$2K to S$12K. So naturally, the eye-level niches in more spacious surroundings with statues of gods/goddesses in view are the pricest of the lot.
2 things that I realised: that (1) occupancy rate is high, the choicest niches are no longer available unless you want to fork out some S$10K; and (2) there are many rich people in Singapore. Remaining niche locations in the "leasehold" building are the best of the lot, but who would want to have to worry about extension or relocating 60 years down the road?
We decided that we didn't like the enclosed format of the Bright Hill Columbarium, so we decided to check out Mandai Columbarium. We want a nice, quiet, peaceful, serene and open-air resting place for Ethan, where we can visit him often and even hang out for a while. Turned out that modern, government-run Mandai is that place we were searching for.
We chose a family niche (meaning that it can hold 3 urns as oppose to the "standard" niche that holds only 1), intentionally picking a niche that is: (1) a "corner unit" in HDB-speak; (2) 2nd level from floor up, so that it is just the right level for us to see him if we sit on the ground, (3) facing the green slope so that Ethan gets a nice view. The bonus is that there is a bench next to his niche, and also, a power socket. Now all we need is wireless connection and we could park ourselves there whole day. I wonder when Wireless@SG will come to Mandai?
I also insisted on personally going down to the Woodlands factory to finalise on the 'artwork' of his tombstone (must be an occupational hazard of mine), when the lady didn't understand what I meant by wanting specific fonts for the engravings. Didn't help that I didn't know what's the mandarin translation for 'font'. The resultant tombstone isn't particularly creative nor a breakthrough of any sorts, but it is what I prefer rather than those standard-package design that all the other niches have.
His picture you see on his tombstone, that's another story. As we have pitifully few photos of Ethan, the best one was the one I've taken of him with the Shrek ears when he was only some 2.5 months old. We love the mischevous gleam in his eye, like he is sharing some secret with you. He looked so alert in that photo. But we didn't like to remember him with all those tubes. So we found this kind-heartened young fellow in a makeover shop who DIed away the Shrek ears and the NG tube for us.
"Before":
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