Saitaomei had her one year old immunisation jabs today. Three of them, poor thing. She wailed and flinched at each jab, my poor ah pa who volunteered to hold her whilst each jab was administered, winced visibly at each jab too. When I recounted the story to ah ma, she laughed and told me that ah pa never accompanied her to any of our immunisation jabs or check ups when we were kids. That’s how lucky my kids and I are.
With R’s job nature and his workaholic nature, I went to a lot of Saitaoha’s checkups and immunisation jabs by myself. I disliked these appointments because it meant a lot of stressing and planning on my part. I wasn’t and am still not the most confident driver and hated getting to and fro these appointments.
My life turned for the better when my parents arrived. Ah pa drove me and accompanied me to so many of these check ups. I remember sometimes ah ma would come along too and I was so relaxed when they were around.
With my poor health these past couple of years, ah pa also drove me to many of my medical appointments. Most of the time he would stay with me but lately with the frequency of my appointments, I asked him to go home first and pick me up later.
This driving back and forth is not something I take for granted. My dear ah pa is not a very confident driver on foreign roads but he will always offer to drive me everywhere as long as it’s for us.
I just sometimes weigh myself down with guilt because I worry about being such a burden to my parents. I am better but I’m far from 100%. I am never in comfort but I thank heavens that at least I’m no longer in agonising pain. I am so impatient to get well because I want to take some of the load of my parents, I want them to stop worrying for me, I want to stop worrying about them. It’s such a vicious cycle isn’t it ?
Sometimes I wish my kids would hurry go up so they can be more independent and self sufficient. But today whilst putting Saitaomei to bed, I realised that for quite some time, she no longer wants to be cradled and rocked to sleep. I felt a huge pang of loss and knew instantly that my baby was no longer a baby.
It almost makes you want to have another baby, just to have another baby again. But I know my parents wouldn’t survive supporting another grandchild and I probably can’t survive without their support too. So that thought is smothered and hopefully won’t surface again.
daitaoha 