Michael Tan shares his experience about his cousin, the hospitalization, treatment, and when she passed the wake in this COVID times.
October 27,2021 - 08:00 AM
COVID-19 has brutally challenged us to think about our vulnerabilities, about uncertainties of life, and about death. I have never attended so many wakes and funerals — all online — in such a short period of time, and always with a feeling of a lack of closure because of the COVID restrictions. I was flabbergasted when she contacted me in June to ask for help with medical expenses, the doctors already diagnosed her cancer as stage 4, the most advanced, and that the cancer had spread to the lungs and to her bones. She had postponed asking for professional help for years literally, knowing but not wanting to know.
I had to explain to my cousin that money would be better spent on palliative care — especially for pain management — a caregiver, good nutrition. On her last day I got the latest medical update and I knew it was time. In Chinese-Filipino culture, young people have to take leave while elders also have to give leave. I called to do that, more of consoling and reassuring her that she could go, gently repeating “an sim” . She passed a few minutes after I finished the call.Then I had to gird myself knowing what was to come, this time of her handful of friends and relatives wanting a long wake, but no one wanting to pay for it.
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