My alma mater is Father Barre’s Convent, Sungai Petani. It is a wonderful school that brought a group of wonderful girls in the 1960s together. And the girls, having passed through its fields, corridors, and classrooms, have never forgotten the time they spent there.
If ever a school served as a backdrop to start relationships that have come to stand the test of time, it is this special school. And the school is only as special as the people who had passed through it - my batch of girls!
Amazingly after a lapse of almost three decades, where each one of us tried to grab at our individual destinies, we are now back to reconnecting and enjoying each other’s company and relishing every minute of it.
While we were trying to analyse which one of us contributed the most to this reunion, not in any competitive fashion, but in the great spirit of camaraderie that we were all into now, Sheila very generously said it was me, or rather what I had written to all the girls in our group after a very special visit to one of our classmates.
This classmate is none other than Dr Jayaswari or Jaya to us, who today lies in a shocking vegetative state in a nursing home in Kuala Lumpur. On the 27 April 2005, a couple of us classmates decided to visit Jaya. I had heard that she was bedridden but I wasn’t prepared for what was in store. When I came back home I needed therapy and mine had become writing. So I wrote an email to whoever was in the group at that time. (There were not many, maybe just about five of us at that point.) Perhaps this letter highlighted the spirit of Jaya and that’s holding us all together in a bond that defies definition. We are all so separate with our own lives and yet we are so united and close with each other. Maybe that email did bring us together. Our group is now almost twenty wonderful ladies!
This is the email.
Dear Friends,
I am compelled to write on Jaya. What I remember of her is that she was a fairly tall, lanky girl of about 5'6", dusky-complexioned and meticulous in her school work. I don't know if she knew me well enough to remember me after these years, like the way I remember her. But that is surely academic now.
Can she even remember the minute that just left her? Can she remember the day she gained admission into medical school? Surely that must have pleased her enormously. Everyone I knew then wanted to be a doctor if the parents could manage it and I am quite sure she must have been delighted to have been able to start her dream. And five years later when she became a qualified doctor I am certain she must have started in earnest to practice what she had learnt. I have no doubt Jaya must have cured many and took pleasure in doing her job well and thoroughly. Unfortunately I don't know the details because like most of us, I lost touch but I am assuming she did well in her career. She must have for God must have known her cruel fate and allowed her that pleasure at least.
When Jaya married and begot her first darling son, her life must have seemed complete. Isn't that the way with us mothers? From that point most other things become secondary. The children anchor us, make our spirits soar and our hearts happy. We fight their battles subtly and often become proxies, standing up for them when they want to absent from life's difficult patches. We give them the sanctuary they need and embrace them, not so much to pleasure them as much as to please ourselves. And I bet it was that way with Jaya and her son. I hear he is seventeen now - a young man whom she must be proud of.
While Jaya must be suffering in silence for the things she can't say to him or perform for him, he must too in his young heart yearn for the love of his mother. I wonder if there is anything we can do for him.
Jaya looks well-cared for in the nursing home but her cheeks were sunken and her sight lost, or maybe searching. But the size of her body shocked me most. She must be a mere 50 lbs or so and I imagine this wasting must have been slow -five years and still going on.
Yes, the ‘whys’ are not going to find any easy answers, in fact, no answers at all. I wonder if she thinks in circles asking the same questions that are on the lips of all her visitors or if she has accepted her condition and thinks of a far away world where she is doing happy things with her family, particularly her son.
Does a mother’s dream die when she can't attend to her son? When she is not by his side nagging him to finish his breakfast cereal or besieging him to ride his bicycle slower? No, I don't think so. A mother's dreams for her children have no melody or lyrics save the exceptionally sweet flavour of her spiritual chant which hum in her heart and stray into her prayers every time she gets a recess to think of a future - a future where her child is happy, cared for and loved. I am certain that is the case with Jaya. I am so terribly sad for the words she can't say to the world, to her family and especially to her only child, her son.
I am so sad that because she can't say these words, she may have been dismissed from the life of the people who mean most to her. I am so terribly sad that the mother in her must be beating itself so hard that it bleeds, to get out, get up and embrace her son and pour her heart out and wet his cheeks with her tears....
Do you think she feels hopeful now that we are back in her life? Do you think she is willing us to think for her? My eyes mist thinking about all of this. It is very cruel. This helplessness, at what little we can do for her while she may be waging a tremendous battle within her, makes me weep. I know in the vastness of the universe and in the general scheme of things we are nothing. And perhaps that’s the kinder of thoughts because the impotency seems justified, for in all honesty what can we do? Hope. Such a big word and then I feel a certain anger. Hope - it seems the biggest hoax-word of all.
Five years is a long time for Jaya to be stilled in life, and I think physiologically a lot of what has happened may be irreversible. And so with thoughts of what we, I, can actually do for her, I go to bed, with a question or two in my mind for Him. I hope Jaya at least has a good night's rest for tomorrow will tire her again because her day works on her and the endlessness of it all must surely weigh on her mind. Yes, her mind - wherever that is. It is so very sad. – K
After this, many of us re-connected and Jaya seemed to be the common topic of our conversations. Now, after several months, we don’t talk as much about her but we feel her spirit and almost always are making plans to visit her. We can’t seem to do much outwardly for her and we always feel helpless and sad when we leave but we hope that our renewed friendship will crack her silence and by some miracle she recovers. Yes, we are definitely hoping for a miracle. When Loke Yen visited her for the first time with a lovely bouquet she responded by turing her head around and when Poh Aun came to see her all the way from Australia she moved her head and grunted aggressively as if she was trying to say something.
The classmates from Father Barre’s Convent are a rare find and if nothing else comes out of our meetings, where we discover truly amazing things about each other, we at least know that in this vast world there is plenty of room and opportunity for people to renew the love, respect and friendship that was once within our hearts. We just need to make an effort and we are enriched beyond words for that effort.
Dear God, please do bring back our Jaya. We need her to complete the circle which she was hugely responsible to start.
4 comments:
I'm at loss for words. Such is fate and one can't help but wonder what God has planned for each and every one of us in the days to come; and whether, we are ready for it.
oh maya,
*cant type, too much crying*
She certainly knows she has some wonderful and loyal friends.
In the stillness of time,
A soul sashays through the sea of clouds,
She sees each one of you,
Smiles,
Knows she was the chosen one,
To bid the first goodbye,
And walk the clouds forever
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