the doctor updated us that based on the ecg results, the time of death would be recorded as 7.05pm. she then stepped aside, expressed her deepest condolences and left us to grieve. for me, after a moment, i went into my mechanical mode. much as i grief, i needed to ensure things are in order, family was prepared and that relationships were managed.
while the hospital staff were sensitive to our tender moments at the time of the passing, i was the one who's moving around ensuring things were managed well. first and foremost was to provide the space for everyone to grieve. i walked aside to allow my brother and his family, and the neighbour to bid their farewells. i made my way to the nurse to get them to prepare the death documentation so that i could head to the administration to get the official certificate. once done, i called the funeral to arrange for the funeral. they would send a co-ordinator to meet me at the hospital soonest, the staff said.
with all these needful done, i could only wait. and as i waited, my sisters arrived. i had brought my brother's family away to the rest area as i didn't want the kids to get traumatised/ afraid. for my eldest sis, she came, went to the bedside and cried quietly. as for my second sis (frankly, i could not recall which one arrived first), lo and behold, she wailed and cried and created quite a bit of commotion. i admitted that inwardly, i was a little sceptical about her strong reactions, considering she had full of excuses whenever i asked her to visit mum or to talk to her on the phone. but i decided to let it be. these are for her to manage and not for me to decide. i wondered for the moment if her strong reactions was a result of guilt. then again, i refrained from saying anything. everyone had to have their own closure and the least i could do was to keep quiet.
much as i myself was grieving, i avoided getting too near the bed. i didn't want to add to the commotion created by my second sis. while my nephew was too little to comprehend what had just happened, my niece was clearly uncomfortable. i used the opportunity to educate her about death and explained to her about life. death is a natural occurrence when a person gets old, and much as we celebrate birth, we must also accept death when it happens. i told her. she listened and nodded her head as i explained. and i repeated it again to make sure she understood and that my explanation made sense.
once the documents were done, i left the ward and headed to the accident & emergency department to register the death. the process was smooth and very sensitively handled. it didn't take too long but to me, i was in a state of daze and i teared occasionally as i waited. thankfully, having managed dad's demise, i knew what to expect. the doctor had indicated the cause of death as "pneumonia", something that i knew didn't reflect the whole picture but it didn't matter to me. with the death certificate issued, the admin staff returned my mum's identity card to me. a hole had been punched on the card, indicating that card had expired. with a heavy heart, i took the documents and headed back to the ward.
there was nothing much we could do at the ward except to wait for the funeral parlour representatives. as we waited, my nieces started to arrive, one by one. my nieces were never close to my mum in the first place and their presence was more out of courtesy than a need, i thought. then again, i refrained from making my thoughts explicit and gave each of them the space to do what they needed to do (grieve?). they took a quick look at mum and walked away to chat amongst themselves. as for mum's body, i had told the nurse i didn't want to put the body at the mortuary and so, as in my dad, they arranged for mum to be placed in the "last office" - a temporary room for dead patients before the body is removed.
before they moved mum's body from her ward bed to the last office, the nurses drew the curtains of every single bed in the ward. the whole scene was rather surreal. the whole ward looked cold and quiet, very solemn. as it was visitation hour, there were many visitors but all kept quiet and stayed by the bed of the patients. i supposed it was the hospitals' practice so that the dead body is kept out of sight from existing patients and their guests. everyone in the family had their fair share of private times in the last office with mum. and as to be expected, it was an emotional moment for some of my family members, especially my brother. he stood by the bed and kept talking to my mum, urging her to go in peace as he reflected about her life to my neighbour who stood by quietly.
i didn't want to go near the body. much as i grief, i reminded myself that i needed to keep in control to manage the post-life affairs. i also wanted to minimise opportunities where i might lose control of myself. i simply walked in an out of the last office every few minutes to take a look at the body. by then, the body had cooled down and the face had turned a tat pale. everything seemed to come to a stand still as we waited for some time before the funeral parlour representatives arrived. soon, the mortuary porter arrived with a huge coffin-shaped metallic box. mum was eventually transferred into the box and we made our way downstairs to hand the body over to the funeral parlour.
that was about slightly pass 10pm. after verifying that the body was that of my mum's, i formally took over the body from the hospital staff and handed it over to the funeral parlour undertakers. we were told to wait for the representative inside the building when they loaded the body into the van. it was taboo to watch them do so apparently. the funeral arrangements were all made outside the mortuary and by the time we left, it was close to 11pm. i started texting my closer friends about mum's demise and informed my boss about the passing. by the time i packed what i needed to pack to dress mum up and to prepare for the wake, it was closely to 1.30am. i was exhausted but i didn't sleep, i couldn't.
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