Death Upon Me, part 2

 

Death upon Me

[Why am I still here?]

[Am I crying for help?]

   

            [Part 2 of the three part mini-series.  If you have not read Part 1, do it first.  It is IMPORTANT to read the INTRODCUTION before reading any part of this series.  It also may increase a little more interest when starting from beginning.]

 

            Part 1 consist of:

            [MEDICATION] Slowed Heart Beat

            [MEDICATION] Pain Killer Drugs

            [EVENT] Spine Disc Bulging

            [EVENT] My Mom

 

            Now, part two continues:

            [EVENT] High School Classmate

My high school classmate, in his seventies, a medical doctor in Hong Kong, was in excellent health when I saw him only months ago in Hong Kong.  He was one of the “three musketeers” [three closest friends when we were in high school].  Couple months later, I received the news that he passed away with no apparent causes.  Both he and his wife were medical doctors.  I was told that he went to bed one evening complaining a little tired.  He was discovered next morning dying in bed in his sleep peacefully without disturbing anyone around the house.

It was a shock to me.  This was the least expected.  Though he was old, but not that old; he was a doctor, knowledgeable how to stay healthy; his wife was doctor also and capable to keep his husband healthy.  He showed no illness only a few months earlier when we were in the same dinner party in Hong Kong.  Death came so suddenly.

It is always sad when hearing about the death of some friend or relative.  However we all have to die once.  If one reaches decent age and pass away peacefully without suffering, in the good old Chinese saying, it is call “smile funeral” [笑喪].  During the last thirty five years, I travelled very frequently.  The last count I had travelled to 47 countries.  That meant I flew very often.  I was asked that if I worried about airplane accident.  Accidents happened in the air were different than on the ground such as car accident, the chances of survival were very slim.  I told them I did not worry at all.  There was nothing better than, one minute earlier I was having good time while one minute later, I was gone – no pain, no scare, and gone “peacefully”.  That was the best way to go.

So as what happened to this classmate it was definitely qualified as “smile funeral”, though sad but we should not feel depressed (or am I kidding myself?).

 

            [EVENT] Her First Cousin Accident

            My wife’s 90 year old cousin fell downstairs in her town house.  Since she lived alone, nobody really knew what and when did it happen.  All we knew was that she was lying on the living room floor while the area was flooded due to the water piping collapsed at the ceiling.  Nobody knew how she fell and how long she was there until she was discovered later.  The best guess was that she probably had fallen down, knocked herself unconscious, and lying on the flooded dining room floor for probably more the 48 hours or longer.  For those two or three days or even longer, she was there without water, without food, and could not move while submerged in water naked.

            She was practically unconscious when they discovered her.  She was rushed to hospital.  The first evening, even the hospital staff did not believe she would survive.  But surprisingly, she recovered only to the point that she could talk clearly and be able to respond to others.  Other than that, it was obvious that her brain was not the same as she was before the fall.

            She could not recognized most of other anymore.  She could not talk intelligently as she was before.  Other than that, she was living, but, in fact, she was not really living.  When I watched her, I felt sad to the stomach that just a little accident took her normal life away.  I could not help to look at myself.  Because of the spine disc bulging bothered me; but, probably it was more true to say that the aging bothered me, Most time I felt I lost part of the balance when I walked.  This was probably because of aging when the leg muscles became weaker, and the support to the whole body became weaker.  I did not feel I could walk as well as before.  That meant that I could fall just like our first cousin and ended up just like her.

            No matter how carefully I took care of myself, would that guarantee that I would not lose my independency as she was now?

 

[EVENT] Her Japanese Friend

My wife’s Japanese girl friend, in her sixties, unexpectedly discovered that she had cancer, serious enough that not just required surgery also follow-up chemo-therapy with no guarantee for a complete recovery.

This was not an isolated incident.  For the last twenty years, I constantly heard news from friends, relatives and classmates unexpectedly having some type of illness.  It probably should not consider unexpected.  When all of us were in the same age bracket – seventy or older, because of aging and because of deterioration of body functions, something was bound to happen.  Some more fortunate had something tolerable; and others might be more serious or even terminal.  Regardless, they were all unpleasant and unfortunately had no other option but accepting them.

 

            [MIND] Original & Personal Families

            In 1959, when I came alone to U.S. from Hong Kong to attend college, I left my family behind.   A couple years later when I was still in U.S., my father passed away in 1962 at age of 49.  Years later my brother passed away in 2005 at age of 72, and my mom in 2006 at age of 93.

            Although I was married and have had a couple children, and started my own family, my personal family, I still cared, in a different way, my original family with only my parents and my brother, the four of us.  It did not mean that I was in favor of one from the others.  I loved them all.  However, in my mind, they were still different, and influenced my life in a different way.

            The personal family included my wife and the two children.  Due to my and their careers, it was inevitable that we were separated geographically.  I followed my company, moved from San Francisco to Michigan and to Maryland during the last thirty five years until my retirement and settled down in Maryland.  My daughter married and stayed in Seattle where her husband worked.  My son had been in the computer animation/Hollywood movie industry, and stayed in West Coast where all the movies were generated, and currently moved and lived in Vancouver, Canada.

            Because of the geographically separation, even with the convenience of air transportation, it was still a hassle and expensive to commute back and forth.  This resulted that, if we were lucky, we would see each other only for a week or two once a year.  It was so sad to think how long my life would be and how much time we could manage to be together.

            The original family was not by choice.  When I was born I automatically became a family member.  Whether you enjoyed being part of it was immaterial.  We cared for them very much because we were part of them.  We lived in the same house, saw each other every day when we got up, and had meals together.  We spent time together at least part of the day, every day.  Just like almost everything else, you never treasured them until they were gone.  As I was now getting older, I began to feel how valuable those moments were.  Nothing could replace having the family members being together always.

            That was the reason I missed my original family so much.  However, I accepted the fact that when we were older, some of us would go away sooner than the other.  But it did not mean that I could control my feeling when I lost them one by one.  Even though I was the youngest of the four, with three of them gone, I could not help to feel alone.  Especially at the evening when I ran out of work to keep my mind occupied, I could not help to think of them.

            I do not believe in ghosts.  However, I wish there are ghosts and some or all of them may come back to visit me when I am alone.

 

            [MIND] Empty Nest

            In the old Chinese saying (I have been quoting it frequently), one of the four most treasured and happiest moments in life is the wedding night [久旱逢甘霖, 他鄉遇故知,洞房花燭夜,金榜題名時].  It is the satisfying moment that we spread our wings and build our own nests.  We finally have someone we love to spend the time together for the rest of our lives.  With the addition of children, it gives us the satisfaction that we are enlarging the love circle.

            However, history repeats itself.  When the kids get older, they will spin off to have their own families.  The chances are that they will not be in the same geographical location as the parents’ home.  If we are in Hong Kong, an independent city, they are lucky to be within commute distances regardless which corner of the city you live in.  However, in U.S., most of the times, the parents and the children are in different corners of the country. 

            What it ends up is that, we may manage seeing each other only once or twice a year.  We never think of it when we are younger.  With the busy schedule of working, vacationing, and personal social life, we never pay much attention to it.  However, when we are retired, and especially when we are older with more leisure time at home, we cannot help to think about it.  No matter how convenient the air transportation is, it is still impossible to get together with them as frequently as we would like to have.

            For instance, I am eighty three years now.  How long will I live is anybody’s guess.  So if I will live to 90 which are considered long life in accordance to the national average, still we are talking about just another six or seven year.  If we manage together twice a year, we are talking about twelve times for the remaining of my life.  Twelve, just twelve, is so unacceptable.  But then, what can we do about it?  Frustrated, sad, disturbed, annoyed or even upset, but what can I do about it other than just reluctantly accepting it.

 

            [MIND] Move to Seattle

            When feeling the frustration of unable to see the children and their families only probably a dozen times for the rest of my life, there is always some ways to improve the situation to my satisfaction – by moving to where the children live.  Since I am retired, I am free to move to wherever I want to live.  So it is very simple.

            Life is never as simple as that.  When I retired at sixties, I was still so “young” that I have unlimited energy.  Since travel has been my number one hobby, so when I was free since retirement, I had been so busy travelling to some corners of the world, and, in between, visited my children.  And life had been so busy and so enjoyable, moving to live next to the children was not my major concern.

            Twenty years later when now I am at my eighties, I am not as young as twenty years ago.  Additionally, physical condition deteriorating, and travelling has to slow down because of aging.  With the change of life style, suddenly moving closer to the children becomes a major issue.  Unfortunately after living in the same house for over thirty years, moving becomes not a simple task anymore.  Even cleaning up the house after being there so long is not as simple as it sounds.

            I love to move, the children are excited my move, the friends in Seattle cannot wait for me to join them, except, my wife has built up her musical social circle, she is not as enthusiastic as I am.  I have no doubt that she is supporting me.  She also understands that it is my desire to fulfill my dreams to be close to my children.  But, since they are my children, not hers, she does not have the enthusiasm to push the moving.

            So at surface, we are preparing to move, but, realistically we are in the stall mode.  A couple years had gone by since we suggested moving we are not even closer to make it a reality.  I cannot make the move all by myself.  When time goes by slowly, I have to reluctantly accept the fact that I will never be able to be in Seattle to enjoy the life closer to my children. 

            Can I push for it?  Of course I can.  I am looking at my favorite slogan “Thinking always of trying to do more brings a state of mind in which nothing seems impossible”.  I can act on it so it will not ruin my career record.  But that means that I will get my wish, but not our wish.  If I force it, that is selfish that I only consider my own interests, not our common interest.  Does this worth it?  So I finally have accepted the reality that life will not gain by forcing it.  After accepting the cruel fact, I become more relaxing.  Suddenly it is not so important anymore even I will never been able to achieve it.

            Even that we may eventually move, but, in my mind, is it really that important anymore?  If we manage to move, say, four years from now, and I can manage to live until 90, six years from today, so I will have two years to enjoy fulfilling my dream.  Is two years that important in my life anymore?  If I can be with them ten or twenty years, that definitely is a great deal for me, but, now, two years?  I lost the enthusiasm even thinking about it.

            That is life.  It is sad to think that my last dream in my life I will not be able to achieve it.  Yes, that is right.  That is life!!!!

 

            [EVENT] New Car Purchase

            A few months ago, I bought a new car.  Because of the accident that totaled one of the cars we were using, we needed a new car to replace the one we lost.

            That was not the first car I bought.  When I was in high school, I bought a couple cars for my parents, with their money.  Still it was exciting to have new toys.  After I came to this country, I finally bought my first car.  It was so exciting to finally purchase the first car with my own money.  I did not choose the make; I just bought the one available that I could afford it.  What type of car was immaterial; I knew that I could get my dream car later on when I managed to save more money.

            During the next sixty years, I purchased several cars.  Since financially I was more stable, I had the luxury to select a better car to my satisfaction.  Still even though each car I bought was not my dreamed car, still I knew that I could always improve to have a better car next time.

            Now, I just bought another new car.  Unfortunately the excitement was not there.  Instead the depression replaced the excitement to realize that this would be the last car of my life.

 

            [EVENT] Driver License Renewal

            Just had my driver license renewed.  Before I go any further, I have to clarify something very interesting and ridiculous - my birth date in my driver license (as well as all the official documents) is fake.  Because of the error when I applied the first Hong Kong identification card over seventy years ago, my official age was incorrectly entered by accident; my official age is now three years old than my real age.  Since it was an innocent error and the age is just a number and not really how old I am, it does not bother me one way or the other.  Besides especially when I am getting older, it becomes more and more immaterial.  What is different if I am eighty one or eighty four?  Case closed.

            Anyway, last time when I renewed my driver license, my official age was eighty two (fake age).  Even though I was actually three years younger, but in their eyes, they accepted that I was 82 years old.  I was wondering if they would issue a new license for a person over 80 to drive.  But to my surprise, I did not even need to go to Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to renew.  All I needed was to send the form and money by mail, and they just gave me a new driver license by mail, without requiring showing I was “young” enough to drive.  The license was extended for 5 years to age of 87 (fake age).

            Five years later, I was due to renew my license again.  But this time, the timing was not good for me.  They just adopted a new system that they would issue the “true id” this year.  In order to complete the process, we had to bring other identification documents to show them face to face.  I could no longer be able to do it my mail.

            The same questions came to my mind.  Would they extend my license beyond my official (fake) age of 87?  Would I need to take an examination to show I was still capable to drive at the age of 87 and beyond?  Would they reject my application because I was too old to drive?  Even if they would not, would I just get a one-year extension so I had to show them I was still capable every year?  It would not be surprised that they would not extend my driver license extension since my official age was 87 at the beginning of the renewed driving license.  I worried how inconvenient I would be if I had to depend on other to be my driver.  How would that affect my life?  How would it lower my spirit when I have to depend on others [人到無求品自高]?

            When boiling down to it, losing the independency was one of the worst things that will affect me the most.

            The result was surprisingly pleasant.  After submitted the required document for the new “true id” application, they it went to the driver license part.  She did not question how old I was.  I was not sure if she noticed the ‘87’ was in the age column.  Either she thought it was insignificant or she did not even notice it.  I ended up only requiring an eye examination not because of my age, but because I needed to wear glasses when I would drive.

           After passing the easy eye examination, my license was extended for another 8 years.  Eight years!  It was even longer than the five year extension I had last time.  With the additional eight year, I could drive and would not require renewal until I reach the age of 95 (fake age).  It was a pleasant ending even though I considered that it was ridiculous (even it was to my benefit) that they would allow somebody to drive on the streets, highways, when he was 95 years old!

           With the “pleasant” ending, I should be happy that this is over.  But at the same time, I could not help to think that would the last renewal.  I just could not help to think when I reach the age of 95, if I would be still around, would that be completely ridiculous when I apply another renewal when I would be 95?  Would they give me another 8 years to extend the license of age of 103?  Funny, but it was sad and depressing at the same time!  What a mixed feeling I had when I walked out of DMV.

 

            [EVENT] Coronavirus

            Coronavirus outbreak hit China and spread to the passengers in over a dozen cruise ships.  I have been watching television news broadcasting the event, the frustration, the unsettled mind without knowing they may be affected, which means hospitalization and even death.  They were just news while I was sitting at home in the safe zone.  Because of these affected the cruise passengers and I could not help to feeling concern.

            I love to travel.  Since I was in my first cruise travelling around Greek Islands at least thirty years ago, I fell in love with it.  I have been in numerous cruises for the last thirty plus years.  However, since over a year ago, because of my spine/leg pain problems, my travel/cruising has been put on hold.  Since I went the Berlin/Germany/Czech Republic in mid 2017, my travel had been forced to stop. 

            If I have not had the health problems, I probably am in one of those unfortunate cruises.  The most vulnerable persons attracting virus are those over seventy years old with previous medical problems.  I definitely qualified for that since I am over eighty years old and have had three heart procedures over 25 years ago.

            This time, even though I have not been affected, but just watching the news on television makes me feel that I could be one of them. This time, watching the news does not make me sad, depressed but very disturbing and cannot help to think what if I were one of them.

            Then the situation got worse.  After the cruise ship U.S. passengers returned home, they had gone through 14-day quarantine in the military base before sending them to their own homes.  However, it did not seem to resolve the problems.  People were panic or the testing programs were not sophisticated enough, some were tested positive for the virus in several states, mostly in west coast.  Still it seemed that the trend that it would probably have similar cases all around the country. 

            Years ago, when I read the news, I would feel sorry for them, but I would remain as the outsider.  Now the mood change to make me think if I were one of them.  I could not help to think what if one of the neighbors tested positive and pretty soon I might be joining the club.  Rather than think positive year ago and now only thought of the worst.

            How silly, yet how aging affecting the mind.

 

[EVENT] Dentist

I had one of my front tooth extracted and it left a gap there without the tooth.  During one of my visits to my dentist, he pushed me to have a tooth implant to fill the gap.  It was an expensive procedure but that was not why I was rejecting doing it.  But for the dentist, that was his business to make more income from the implant.  My rejection was that because of the implant, it would take at least six months, 3 to 4 visits with at least one of the visits requiring 3 hours of the implant work.  That was why it was so expensive and that was why he was pushing it.

His argument was that I should not have a space with one less tooth at the left side; the chewing would heavily overwork the right side.

“How many teeth do I actually need at my age?” I was joking while I was serious.

He did not want to give up the potential business, he said, “You look and act so young, you probably will live to at least 100.”

That was a wishful thinking.  In accordance to the official statistics the average life expectancy was 78.5.  When I read that in the newspaper, I was thinking, statistically I should have been dead five years ago.  But, realistically, even though I felt young, great and energetic, I was in fact passed the life expectancy by five years today.  How long can I keep it up?  Would I be able to maintain the same condition for another year, another five years, another ten years or longer?  Or no matter how well I felt, lightning might strike suddenly without warning.  Especially for elders like 75 or older, lightning never came gradually but suddenly.

Sad, but am I preparing for that?  Like what I always said, “That is life”!

 

[End of Part 2 of the three part mini-series.  Please continue to Part 3 to complete the entire article.]