Rela, pt. 4

Opa's condition has not improved, neither has it worsened. I guess it stopped getting worse the week I arrived here. He is still unconscious and attached to a feeding tube. He is at home though, and this has eased Grandma's mind quite a lot. She's comforted by the thought that she can be beside him whenever he draws his last breath. At this point, that moment can be tomorrow, or a few months from now.

For the moment I'm torn between relief - that he is still here - and frustration - that he is still here. It's confusing to feel this way (or both ways, I should say); then there's the guilt for feeling the latter. So most of the time I just avoid thinking about it altogether by delving into Conan the Kid Detective, one of my manga collections. A simpler world. Short chapters with the hero saving the day. Gruesome murder scenes, but hey, he solves the mystery, always. The murder solved, the perpetrator exposed, his/her motivation explained, and justice is served.

But when I do look up from my comic books, I see my mom, exhausted, sad, and busy. The home phone rings a lot. Usually it's my Grandma - asking her (or telling her) to pick up more milk or call the nurse's office or to ask where my Aunt is, etc. Or it's my Aunt, to coordinate the day or respond to my mom's questions or tell her when she's coming to pick her up (my mom is car-less at the moment). Mom made a comment the other day that it is so costly to take care of sick people. And I see that look on her face. It wasn't a complaint. It wasn't worry necessarily. It was definitely pity. Does he have to go through this? Kasian, she said. I pity him.

My family members say this word a lot. Kasian. In English it sounds like, Poor you (or him, or her, or them). Or, I feel for you (or him or her, or them). You say something like, this guy I know, he is blind, and before you can go on, they say, Oooh, kasian. And you're like, uh, no no, actually, don't kasian him! He's a great guy, he plays the guitar and sings and performs and mountainbikes and everything! But he's blind, so poor him. Most of the time it doesn't bother me - it actually makes me laugh because it is like a tick, a knee-jerk reaction that I can almost predict when someone will pipe up with it. And also because most of the time, it's for really small things, like me missing the tram and having to wait 12 minutes in the cold rain -- so what. But sometimes it does bother me, like in the case of me telling a story about my friend who is blind, because it feels more like condescencion, like the pity is severely misplaced.

So when my mom said that about my grandpa, I understood her. I felt for her and warranted her this Kasian more than any she's expressed before. But I wanted to make her acknowledge something else, so I made a bold move and asked her, Is he feeling any pain? No, she said, the doctors said he is not suffering; thank goodness. Right, so who is? Grandma, she said, and my siblings - and me.

To hear her confess weakness, pain, and sadness about my Grandpa makes this ordeal much more real to me. Maybe because, it seems to me, if we dish out kasian like it grows on our backyards, but don't own and express our strggles and crap, we are cheating ourselves. I'd like to know that when we feel it for others it reflects our compassion and not pity.