Monday

The summary of my first monday morning after migrating back to homeland singapore comprises of random kindled observations that goes like this:

Mobile alarm has been set at 9am since arrival, but this is the first day I woke up to it. Dad is already up, probably disturbed by the drilling construction coming from somewhere in the vicinity of our block of 4-storey flat. The sun was beaming in making slanted rays of energy-giving glows on the ceramic kitchen floor tiles. Mum and 6th aunt are still asleep.

I made myself an instant 3in1 coffee mix whilst dad go about making tea and other condiments for the altar gods and forefathers. 

Now, today, on another first monday since my return to this bustling city from my revisitation to Sweden, the haze is covering all facades, walls and window panes with an PSI (Pollutant Standards Index) of 111 (and still to soar). I have moved from my parents' flat to a rented hive mounted into a 25-storey block; from woodlands on the northern shores towards bukit panjang which is more central.

6th aunt has passed on from dust to dust last autumn. Mum is suffering from some elusive sort of chronic nerve disorders and pains since more than a year ago, even prior to her hysterectomy last autumn that removed an cyst made up of mucous non-malicious epithelial (thankfully). Dad has been recently diagnosed with osteophytes from rays invented by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. Mother-in-law will soon start rehab after her hip operation. Uncle bear has just been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma (malignant epithelial) that probably originate from the lungs and chemo starts tomorrow. These are just some of the "allt dessa tråkiga" that I care to relate from my mindstrings. "All these bores" is best to be drawn out on a monday.

If I am not fearful of death, I would not have gotten my 5th dosage of Tick-borne Encephalitis TBE vaccine this summer, would I? It is unlikely, but I can still feel the numbness on my arm around where the injection went in.

On this awfully hazy day, I can only wish everyone an asymptomatic death of peace, when the inescapable death comes knocking upon our bolted doors.

We are indeed mortals.

"Being attentive to the needs of others might not be the point of life, but it is the work of life. It can be messy, and painful, and almost impossibly difficult. But it is not something we give. It is what we get in exchange for having to die." - Johnathan Safran Foer, Middlebury College 2013 commencement address

Copyright © Joanne Bergenwall Aw