42

It has been 42 days.

Earthly possessions that belong to my father have been packed away in boxes, kept in cupboards, given away to charity or disposed of. Family members have come weekly to claim bits and pieces of what were once prized posessions to my father to retain as a memory.

42 days has passed since his death.

Our lives have begun to move on, there is no use dwelling in the past. It doesn't seem that long ago that our everyday consisted of tiresome trips to the hospital, which was furthermore burdened by his erratic behaviour and mood swings in the rare occasions of lucidity. But that did not matter. It was one and a half months, day in and day out, before his body finally gave out. It would have been a lifetime before either of us would decide to give up on him.

We never did.

The memory of watching his heart stop beating, with tearful cries surrounding his hospital bed in ward 3001 will never fade. Even when we knew the full reality of the situation, we never gave up hope.

88, 67, 34.... his heartrate fell within a matter of minutes.

What they don't tell you in hospitals, what they never wish to tell you - your heart doesn't give up and stop beating in a nice, slow relaxed manner. Hollywood doesn't prepare you for death. Hearts don't flatline within a matter of seconds - it takes minutes. Cruel, gruelling, heartwrenching minutes as you watch a loved one wither away.

88, 67, 34... 68... 89... 120... 151..

What they don't tell you in hospitals, what they never wish to tell you - in the few moments when a patient's heart starts to pick up, and what's left of the of hope left in a family's heart starts to blossom again... that's when the worst has happened.

The heart releases extra pulses before it becomes nothing but motionless muscle.

I remember my mom's cries. At 10.45am, when his heart started to beat faster - when it started the initial climb back up to what we've learned in the last month to be 'normal' - or heck, 'good enough' - my mom started to cry. Tears of joy. Random phrases of hope were yelled out, in hopes that he would hear it - "You're coming back!", "You're a phoenix, rise from the ashes!", "Don't give up! Keep trying! We're waiting!"

But I knew it wasn't hope, it wasn't a miracle, it wasn't some dumb stroke of luck that was bringing my father back - he was leaving, not returning.

I will never forget.

I walked out of the hospital room there and then, shaky, in tears - but calm. I stood in the corridor we had spent so many days and nights in, watching as the world continued. It seemed selfish, but I had hoped that there was some recognition to my father's death occuring in that instant. I felt close to telling everyone, 'Hey, you may not know him - but a great man is dying in that bed right now. You should be sad. You should be mourning. A great man is leaving us.'

Memory from a friend

悼念沛安

August 12, 2009 ·

上星期五去吊唁沛安时，在灵前的地藏菩萨前，我默祷地藏菩萨好好带他上路。他的女儿走前来播起沛安生前录制的CD，一听到他那熟悉、沉厚、富有感情的歌声，我的眼眶刹那间红了起来。歌声还在，人却已经走了。
58岁就走了，他可是壮志未酬，他还想在一个大舞台上舞刀挥剑，为自己的人生做一场精采的演出。但来不及了，他的人生舞台已经落幕了。
滔滔不绝的口才，记忆力超强的头脑，博览群书，知识丰富，天文地理，民俗典故，金融财务，艺术文化，讲起来头头是道。动能舞狮武术，静能画画写字，刊登在报上讣告里的背景竹影，就是他的亲笔画。结交的朋友有豪门大户，政经人物，三教九流，五湖四海，充满江湖豪气。
但这一切都随风而去，只有留下的歌声还在耳边绕梁。
丽云应该是做了很好的心理准备。沛安的健康这几年都不好，10年前做了血管绕道，5年前换了肾脏，又有糖尿病，血压忽高忽低，但又不照顾身体，不节制饮食，为打拼事业冲刺。
这次再进医院做绕道，已经不是10年前的他，并发症一起来，一个多月住院，进进出出加护病房，他临终的前一晚去看他，他其实已经是进入昏迷状态。
这是一个有大野心的男人。可能贫苦的出身，不凡的背景，让他非要有出头天不可，结果换来的是宿愿未达，人已乘黄鹤归去。
昨天是他的头七，他应该是上路到另一空间了。时不予我，沛安，别抱怨，平静上路，如有来世，愿你完成宿愿，大展雄心。
祝愿大家照顾健康，没有健康，什么心愿都是无法实现的美梦。

Loh Family & Friends visiting Harry on eve of final op, 30th July 09

Dr Stephen Chew took the bold step to remove the transplanted kidney to
prolong his life. It was Hobson's choice. Else his toxicity in his blood
and urine wouldn't allow him to live another 24 hours.

Time will heal...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grief#Stage_theories_and_processes

http://helpguide.org/mental/grief_loss.htm

http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/emotions/someone_died.html

http://grief.net/

elisabeth kübler-ross - five stages of grief
kubler-ross model for death and bereavement counselling, personal change
and trauma

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (which is the correct spelling; Elizabeth Kubler
Ross is a common incorrect form and used above for search-engine
visibility). Incidentally, 'counselling' is UK English and 'counseling' is
US English.

Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross pioneered methods in the support and counselling
of personal trauma, grief and grieving, associated with death and dying.
She also dramatically improved the understanding and practices in relation
to bereavement and hospice care.

Her ideas, notably the five stages of grief model (denial, anger,
bargaining, depression, acceptance), are also transferable to personal
change and emotional upset resulting from factors other than death and
dying.

We can clearly observe similar reactions to those explained by
Kübler-Ross's grief model in people confronted with far less serious
traumas than death and bereavement, such as by work redundancy, enforced
relocation, crime and punishment, disability and injury, relationship
break-up, financial despair and bankruptcy, etc.

This makes the model worthy of study and reference far outside of death
and bereavement. The 'grief cycle' is actually a 'change model' for
helping to understand and deal with (and counsel) personal reaction to
trauma. It's not just for death and dying.

This is because trauma and emotional shock are relative in terms of effect
on people. While death and dying are for many people the ultimate trauma,
people can experience similar emotional upsets when dealing with many of
life's challenges, especially if confronting something difficult for the
first time, and/or if the challenge happens to threaten an area of
psychological weakness, which we all possess in different ways. One
person's despair (a job-change, or exposure to risk or phobia, etc) is to
another person not threatening at all. Some people love snakes and
climbing mountains, whereas to others these are intensely scary things.
Emotional response, and trauma, must be seen in relative not absolute
terms. The model helps remind us that the other person's perspective is
different to our own, whether we are the one in shock, or the one helping
another to deal with their upset.

The study of death and dying is actually known as thanatology (from the
Greek word 'thanatos' meaning death). Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is accordingly
sometimes referred to as a thanatologist, and she is considered to have
contributed significantly to the creation of the genre of thanatology
itself.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's seminal book was On Death & Dying, published in
1969, in which she explained her now classically regarded 'five stages of
grief'. The book and its ideas were quite revolutionary at the time,
reflecting Kübler-Ross's outspoken and bold approach, which is paradoxical
given the sensitivity and compassion of her concepts.

Kübler-Ross was a catalyst. She opened up and challenged previously
conservative (sweep it under the carpet, don't discuss it, etc) theories
and practices relating to death and bereavement, and received an
enormously favourable response among carers, the dying and the bereaved,
which perhaps indicates the level of denial and suppression that had
earlier characterised conventional views about the subject - particularly
in the western world, where death is more of a taboo than in certain other
cultures.

As stated, and important to emphasise, Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief
model was developed initially as a model for helping dying patients to
cope with death and bereavement, however the concept also provides insight
and guidance for coming to terms with personal trauma and change, and for
helping others with emotional adjustment and coping, whatever the cause.
This has probably helped her ideas to spread and to enter 'mainstream'
thinking.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and her ideas have now become synonymous with
emotional response to trauma, and to grief support and counselling, much
like Maslow is fundamentally associated with motivational theory; Kolb
with learning styles, and Gardner with multiple intelligence.

As with much other brilliant pioneering work, the Kübler-Ross model is
elegantly simple. The five stages of grief model is summarised and
interpreted below.

This Kübler-Ross five stages and terminology are featured here with
permission from the Elisabeth Kübler Ross Foundation, which is gratefully
acknowledged. Please look at the two websites www.ekrfoundation.org, and
www.elisabthkublerross.com, both of which enable and sustain Dr
Kübler-Ross's values and mission, and extend help to those who need it.

Please be aware that the interpretation and contextual material on this
webpage represents my own thoughts on the subject. I would encourage you
to develop your own ideas too - this is a deeply significant area and one
that can be interpreted in many ways. My interpretation and associations
are not an attempt to reproduce Kübler-Ross's thinking, they seek to
provide a modern context, and to relate the basic model to the
philosophies of this website.

Use of and reference to the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross five stages for
commercial purposes, and publication of EKR quotations, require permission
from the EKR Foundation. You can use freely the other aspects of this page
subject to the normal terms for using this website, briefly summarised at
the foot of this page.

elisabeth kübler-ross - five stages of grief

Also known as the 'grief cycle', it is important to bear in mind that
Kübler-Ross did not intend this to be a rigid series of sequential or
uniformly timed steps. It's not a process as such, it's a model or a
framework. There is a subtle difference: a process implies something quite
fixed and consistent; a model is less specific - more of a shape or guide.
By way of example, people do not always experience all of the five 'grief
cycle' stages. Some stages might be revisited. Some stages might not be
experienced at all. Transition between stages can be more of an ebb and
flow, rather than a progression. The five stages are not linear; neither
are they equal in their experience. People's grief, and other reactions to
emotional trauma, are as individual as a fingerprint.

In this sense you might wonder what the purpose of the model is if it can
vary so much from person to person. An answer is that the model
acknowledges there to be an individual pattern of reactive emotional
responses which people feel when coming to terms with death, bereavement,
and great loss or trauma, etc. The model recognises that people have to
pass through their own individual journey of coming to terms with death
and bereavement, etc., after which there is generally an acceptance of
reality, which then enables the person to cope.

The model is perhaps a way of explaining how and why 'time heals', or how
'life goes on'. And as with any aspect of our own or other people's
emotions, when we know more about what is happening, then dealing with it
is usually made a little easier.

Again, while Kübler-Ross's focus was on death and bereavement, the grief
cycle model is a useful perspective for understanding our own and other
people's emotional reaction to personal trauma and change, irrespective of
cause.

five stages of grief - elisabeth kübler ross
EKR stage Interpretation

1 - Denial Denial is a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts,
information, reality, etc., relating to the situation concerned. It's a
defence mechanism and perfectly natural. Some people can become locked in
this stage when dealing with a traumatic change that can be ignored. Death
of course is not particularly easy to avoid or evade indefinitely.

2 - Anger
Anger can manifest in different ways. People dealing with emotional upset
can be angry with themselves, and/or with others, especially those close
to them. Knowing this helps keep detached and non-judgemental when
experiencing the anger of someone who is very upset.

3 - Bargaining
Traditionally the bargaining stage for people facing death can involve
attempting to bargain with whatever God the person believes in. People
facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek to negotiate a compromise.
For example "Can we still be friends?.." when facing a break-up.
Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it's a
matter of life or death.

4 - Depression Also referred to as preparatory grieving. In a way it's
the dress rehearsal or the practice run for the 'aftermath' although this
stage means different things depending on whom it involves. It's a sort of
acceptance with emotional attachment. It's natural to feel sadness and
regret, fear, uncertainty, etc. It shows that the person has at least
begun to accept the reality.
5 - Acceptance Again this stage definitely varies according to the
person's situation, although broadly it is an indication that there is
some emotional detachment and objectivity. People dying can enter this
stage a long time before the people they leave behind, who must
necessarily pass through their own individual stages of dealing with the
grief.

(Based on the Grief Cycle model first published in On Death & Dying,
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 1969. Interpretation by Alan Chapman 2006-2009.)

My Daddy the Chief and Chef

A picture says a thousand words - not everyone will understand the meaning of this simple photograph of my father, but to me, this represents exactly how much of a joker he was, his love for food and cooking, his 'I'll do it myself!' attitude and how even though most of the time his food tasted terrible, we'd swallow it and smile and tell him it was absolutely delicious.

Oh, and he knew we were lying.

The entombment