49 days have passed, and I'm finally not tearing up whenever I think a tad too long about my mother.

People say that she's supposed to come back for a visit on the 49th day but so far all I've had is a series of weird dreams involving me being a dude running down hills like I'm a cartoon racer in some game; me being a fish; me meeting a handsome Hong Kong actor.

I don't know why but lately I have been developing a crush on daisies. White, pink, yellow, orange, blue, red, whatever color there is, I love them. It's becoming a serious contender with the sunflower for my favorite flower.

Not sure why I haven't asked anyone yet, but is it all right to buy fresh flowers for my mom's altar? She would love some orchids in a pretty vase, I think.

Soon I'll be able to blog without talking about her.

Naps

They used to be one of my favorite pastimes, even though I couldn't have them often enough. Lately it's just been so hectic because every weekend that I get, I make plans with friends or family so that I don't have to be alone for too long in that empty house.

The truth is, I've been craving for a nap. But on Saturdays I have to do the laundry and maybe tell myself that I'm going to mop the floors, and after that I'd be meeting someone or another to hang out. By the end of the night I'm so exhausted that I can barely sleep, if that makes any sense.

The last time I woke up from a nap was to something horrible and unfathomable to me. Now the thought of taking a nap on a quiet Saturday after work sort of terrifies me, although I know my dad would still be there in the living room watching TV, just like he had been on that day. Sometimes my mind wanders into the past, to that fateful day (finally this phrase is being used after all the compositions in school). I still remember everything clearly. I can't erase it.

My room had been dark. It had been approximately 8pm. I was supposed to be meeting Anzhu to visit her dad in Tan Tock Seng hospital later around 9. Ha, life was so ironic - it made me travel in an ambulance with my dying mother to the same hospital before 9. (This may be hard for you to read because I'm being cynical and dark-humored about my mom's dying day but this mood is hard to shake out of when I'm stuck at work staring at a computer screen.)

Heck, I was supposed to go to a club with the rest of my friends after the hospital visit with Anzhu. Clubbing, on the day that my mother died. Fine, Mom, you made your point; you don't have to die to stop me from going clubbing, you dramatic fool. I wouldn't have gone if you had been heaving at home. But instead you pretended you were fine and went to have a ball with your friends downstairs at the community banquet. Well, when the ball started rolling, you dropped it.

I guess I am still mad at you for not letting me be there for your last breath. You must have felt so lost. Why didn't you wait until Dad or I got there? The thought of you dying without your closest kin by your side just kills me. This wasn't how I imagined it.

For years, since I was a kid, I'd thought about you dying. Because you had depression and kept talking about how you were going to die all the time. In primary school, I couldn't imagine myself getting into secondary school because I didn't know if you'd still be there. After secondary school, I kept thinking that you wouldn't be there to see me get into school because I'd waited too long. And then you went into the hospital after an episode and the new meds made you much better. So I began to hope. And I began to relax. Perhaps you could see me graduate. Fall in love. Fall out of love. Get married. Have a career. Have grandchildren for you. I started thinking about your 60th birthday celebration. I talked about getting my driver's license and driving you and Dad around Singapore. I could bring you to the temples where you could pray and be happy.

Well, I guess you're happy now. You better be, because all of us are miserable down here missing you. I am not going through all this melancholy crying bullshit just so you can feel mediocre up there. You have to be happy, Ma. Because that's the only way I can live with myself now.

The pangs hit the hardest at night, when nobody I know is awake to read my depressing tweets. Sure, they'll see them in the morning or afternoon, and perhaps I'll get a few kind words and some virtual hugs, but right now, I have nothing.

I'm not blaming anyone for the lack of response, that's for certain. I mean, there's a reason I do this at night. It means I don't want to feel better. I want to sink down this spiraling pool of water until I gasp for air and learn to appreciate life as it is again.

***
As of today, it's been five weeks since her being gone. 35 days. More than a month. It feels like it was yesterday. It feels like it was five years ago. Sometimes it feels like it didn't happen. And that hurts, because I know it did. Her amount of clothes is endless; every other week I have to pick some out to burn with the paper money and paper ingots and paper whatever and it kills me a little inside each time. To touch the clothes that she used to wear. The ones that she hated, the ones that she loved, the ones she felt neutral towards. And the ones she never got to wear. Oh man, that pile is substantial. It's like she bought clothes for every day of Chinese New Year. Her favorite time of year. And she didn't even get to enjoy the entire period because she had to die.

I am getting myself mad right now. I see what I'm typing, I know what I'm feeling: I'm feeling angry at my mother for deserting me to fend for myself against my dad when he borrows money again, for leaving me no choice but to step up and do housework like I should have started years ago, for having no one to come home and babble about my day to, for making me miss her yammering about her daily gossip with the aunties downstairs, for just being gone.

She's in a better place now, I know. I hope she's happy. But part of me finds that impossible, because I made her happy. That sounds narcissistic, I am well aware, but I know she lived for me. She was a noble, foolish woman who made her life around her daughter and took her advice sometimes, rejected it other times, and stood by her husband even while tearing him apart verbally for the things he did. I miss her so damned much. What I would give to hear her voice again and feel her touch.

Ma, don't come back. Go to wherever you are supposed to be, and be at peace. You're free now. If you hear me cry out for you, don't look back. I love you.

Call me an exhibitionist (I'm probably abusing the word) or...

...call me an extrovert or call me a person who can't shut up. Like the title of this blog, I am an open book even to those who don't like to read. I tend to spill information about myself wherever I go. If you ask, I will tell.

So it makes sense that when I'm grieving alone, I write blog posts, tweet, or update Facebook statuses about my being sad. It's like I can't rest until the entire world knows that I'm unhappy.

But on the other hand, I always want the world to know when I'm ecstatic, too. Let's just agree that I must simply let everyone know what I'm feeling all the time.

I guess it's sort therapeutic for me. When I'm happy, I want to share my joy and when others echo my mirth, I get even happier. It's a little different when I'm sad though; I don't get sadder when other people feel sad for me. When I'm feeling down, I post things, hoping that someone, anyone, will see it and offer me solace, whether it be a text or a phone call or just a simple 'like' on Facebook. It makes me feel less alone. It means at least one person in the world has seen how I feel and that means I'm not the only person inhabiting this vast world.

Therefore, please pardon me when I ramble on sometimes about all the emotions that course through my brain. It's only just so I can peel off emotion by emotion until there's only one or two underlying ones that aren't as strong. Every sentence helps calm my nerves down, so on and on I will write, until this nose stops running and my heart rate slows to its normal speed.

Then, I can have a good night's sleep.

Cory Doctorow hit it on the head

"Shall I tell Cora you called?"

I was about to thank her and ring off, but I stopped. She didn't sound like my mum somehow - didn't have that note of deep, grinding misery from years and years of chronic pain. Didn't sound like she just wanted to make the world all go away. It was the sound of my mum on her rare good days, the few I remembered growing up, when we'd go to the park or even to a fun fair or a bonfire and she'd smile and we'd all smile back at her. When Mum was happy, the whole family shone.

***

Dammit that last line got me.

Finally, the dream

For the past week I've been hearing my relatives regale everyone with their stories of dreams about my mom, and it did show a sequence that was kind of mystical and hilarious.

First my dad dreamt of her. Second was my aunt - my mom's younger sister. Then my uncle's wife and his mother-in-law did. We all live in Potong Pasir. After that was my cousin Eileen, who lived in Sengkang. So I joked that my mom was making her rounds, and next would be my cousin Joey who lived in Jurong. But it's been a few days since that joke and Joey hasn't said anything so I figure she didn't dream of her.

And now my mom's back in Potong Pasir I guess, 'cause I dreamt of her this morning.

In the dream, she was just there. Healthy-looking, smiling, adorable like she was. Is. I don't know. All I know is that I was a little bewildered, yet ecstatic to find that she didn't die after all.

I brought her to my room to show her my newly-organized closet, but then hit a dilemma: I'd separated my clothes into two halves. One half was colored clothing that I couldn't wear for 100 days while the other half were blacks/whites/grays/blues that I could wear. But I couldn't very well tell her why I sorted them that way, because there she was, very much alive! I remember feeling conflicted about it.

Then she proceeded to point to some picture or card that I can't remember anything about, and there were three numbers, 02 04 06 or something like that. I keep recalling that 03 was involved. Afterwards she pulled me into the living room to look at another picture/card and it had four numbers on it, like 4D. But now I can't remember anything.

After a short while, my mom left, and my dad came into my room. I told him Mom came back, and he wore a confused expression. "That wasn't your mom, that was our neighbor auntie who came to visit!"

Imagine my dreamworld crumbling. (Not literally like in Inception, but metaphorically like "my world crumbled".) I got flashbacks of my mom in the dream, just moments ago, and in each flashback she morphed into my neighbor. So it had been a lie. My mom wasn't alive again.

Still, I'm glad I had a dream about her because I was afraid I'd forget her face. In the dream she had been silent, possibly because I've already half-forgotten how her voice sounded like. Or maybe, if I wanted to make sense of the dream, she didn't make a sound because she was an imposter! Speaking would have given her away since she was actually my neighbor.

I am so confused but content.

P.S. Please ignore sentence structure and grammatical errors and overall vocabulary. I'm just writing this all down for me.