A nite in ICU

what an untimely phonecall... that got us all in jitters. we were at tg pagar having prata with the airwavers when hb received a call from LY, saying that SC's old man was sent to ICU last evening, and was in critical condition since then. i called TTSH and the staff nurse from the ward stressed that he was in "very very very critical condition". cant rem exactly how many "very" she used.. and was a lot indeed.

naturally we rushed to TTSH, and thankfully mum n dad rushed down too, to pick son back to hougang. think daryl is still too young to deal with death, sickness and tubes... it wuld be pretty bad and difficult to explain what had happened to "grandpa".

as we walked to the ICU, a sense of "oh-how-i-hate-this-feeling" overwhelmed me. instantly, the ward seemed so cold. heavy hearts, draggy feet, gloomy faces etc.. when we got into the room, the distant relatives looked at us as if we were some strangers gatecrashing. we explained that the old man with tubes linking from his nostrils to his mouth, was hb's godpa, then they looked away, turned their attention to the man on deathbed. looking at the old man on the bed, brought about an unexplainable sadness for me.

the old man's eyes were sedated, lifeless, and almost closing. tubes were linked, from nostrils to mouth, and air was pumped into his mouth from a rubber extractable hose, diameter about one inch. one hand was inserted with needles and the other hand was pale, almost no blood circulation.

he din stir a bit, even when pple ard him were callin out to him. basically, he seemed to have lost consciousness except that he was not in sleepin mode. the atmosephere was tensed. the only sound that repeated every 30 seconds was the "beep" from the monitoring device. now i can fully understand the nerve wrecking feeling, to be disturb by the beepin sound, for fear that it will come to a continuous beep.

there have been too many "conspiracies" among that family, and i am glad that HB dun play a part in this dumb game. Old man was hb's godpa, and his mentor. HB's first decent career sparked off from there. His mentor, the godpa, had treated him same across the board as he treated the rest of the employees. Old man was afterall a business man, and to be a business man in that era, one had to be shrewd and scheming and cunning. but knowing that hb dun fall into the same league as he did, old man dun force hb to do things against his wishes. of cos, there had been many bad moments, when father and son fell out over management decisions. there were also times when after hb left the company, had to return to help as he cant bear to see old man sought help from mutual frens to get son back to assist in his empire. but we have our future to plan, and our challanges to take, and hence hb took the hard decision, to leave and embark on his own career.

old man was sad, but gave his blessings, and continued his lonely path to run his business, in his usual high-handed ways. and now, after 30 years, the business came to an end eventually. bad things happened to old man, and while hb was sad that such was the type of ending that old man had, he cant do much.

now that hb saw old man on the deathbed struggling, i knw it must have been real painful for hb, except the stubborn mouth refused to acknowledge the pain he felt. red eyes gave him away. we waited till 12 plus, till the immediate family members told us to go back and wait for news.

we left the TTSH, wondering if they would eventually call and release the bad news. it was almost 1am then, but both of us were shagged but unable to sleep. hence we sat at a kopi tiam for some drinks and talked. its was nice to hear hb talked, a lot more than usual. as his partner, i just had to ensure that years later when he looked back, he dun regret that he had managed to catch the last look . it wuld break his heart to hear that old man had passed away, without hb taking a last look rite?

anyway, as of this morning, i called the hospital and was told that old man was still hanging for his last breathe, and that things are still critical... we din want to go to TTSH since it was old man's family wish to let it be as unknown as possible. in this aspect, i think we should fully respect their wishes.

well, somehow, i just had to call my own family out for a meal, to fully appreciate the tight bond we had... i think its time to learn to treasure all we have and love.