a second chance in life
so what happens when there is a death in the family.a father who was brutally taken by a speeding mini bus?an aging father who suffered a heart attack and went into coma the whole week, and then died in front of your eyes?losing your own flesh and blood, by choice or by force?so what do we do next?the children of the "murdered" man slowly goes out from their shell and fly away to a totally different environment, with their emotional mother (who had not completely accepted this twisted cruel of fate) tagging along to make sure that her children are taken care of. afraid of losing this part of her as well. what sometimes we as parents do not know is that there will be a time when our children steps out of that comfort zone and venture out into their own world, without wanting their parents to squabble or hinder them. a natural learning process in any young adult. there will be a time when they completely want to be free of their caregiver and just make their own mistakes and just live their own life. so again what will happen to this widow when that time comes? preparation is crucial and reality bites. our lives move in split seconds and by the time we know it, it is already the end of the year and our child does not need us the way they used to. our job is done. continue with our lives yet again when we did not have our children with us. will it ever be the same to live the life that we had with our spouses, or worst, alone (especially in this case)?people lose their loved ones usually by force or they leave in a natural way. but what about losing our own flesh and blood by choice? what does it feel like to have to make a choice when that time comes? to abort, to pull the plug, to not resuscitate? it all sounds pretty morbid, but sadly it is happening. maybe not in yours, but i write with experience, and i have seen or heard, loved ones just had to let go by choice.but amidst this dark hours and unseemingly cruel life of ours, one has to believe that there is always a second chance in life. if not second, let it be third, tenth or the twentieth. just as long as we are still breathing and healthy, everyone and anyone deserve a second chance. i remembered hubby was saying that he had a drowning experience back when he was just a kid. luckily for him his elder cousin was there to pull him up from the current and although hubby was still breathing, he was choking sea water and he was trying to vomit out the fluids from his lungs. the cousin might not be a medical assistant or a doctor, but he was there to perform the basic first aid to help poor hubby. i think this experience plus a couple of other narrow death experience, he has somehow managed to be there when a friend was stung by a deadly coral, an uncle who was suffering from a terrible back pain, a stranger who flagged down his car because his car was spoilt and he was rushing to the hospital (plus it was raining) and rescued abused girls under the AWAM organisation.as for me, i learned my basic survival skills from my own experience as well. though not as adventurous as my husband's, i do have to admit that i might need some help in a medical assistant school, for instance. the only triage that i did was when i fell from my bike, landed my knee on the road gravel, of which i was bleeding profusely and at that time there was no tissue etc, so i covered it with clean leaves and cycled the 3kms home. then there was the time when Angelus had an asthma attack. i was up the whole night trying to help him breathe by clearing out his lung. what i did was i made him vomit the phleghm out. it worked though. but i think if i had some knowledge as a medical assistant maybe, i might have done a whole of things differently. like not place him in that condition in the first place. but of course i learned from my mistake. whenever he has flu, the first thing i do is to make him blow the mucus out and forbade him to swallow it. that is the reason why his lungs get congested most of the time.so the bottom line is triage, basic first aid, second chance and a little bit of compassion will help in the long run, maybe to save someone's life or even yourselves. No hurt learning basic CPR or the basic human anatomy, right?
