The last few weeks of my life had been relatively stressful.
There were many firsts for me during that time: Buying disposable maternity panties and learning to unhook a bra among them.
There we were, my brother and I, standing around causally discussing a woman's most intimate apparel.
"I've never unhooked a bra in my entire life," I said to my brother Barry. "I have, but I've never hooked back a woman's bra in my entire life," Barry said.
"You both know I can hear you right?" the bossy voice and owner of the bra said to the both of us.
Barry and I immediately returned to our task at hand.
We had to unhook the bra of our mum Mrs Lee, who is lying on her stomach, waiting for her sons to get the bra out of the way so that we could change the surgical plaster on her lower back.
Three years ago, Mrs Lee starting feeling a dull ache over her left buttock and thigh.
Our specialist had identified the source of her pain to slipped disc.
Three years of physio and expensive consultations later, Dr Henry Chan finally suggested Mrs Lee be cut up and fixed up once and for all.
It was all for the better -- mum is arguably young for an elderly patient so her chances of a full recovery is more optimistic.
But the timing of the surgery -- a minor one, as Dr Chan assures -- couldn't have been any worse.
The day of Mrs Lee's scheduled operation was the very day Singapore's health ministry forbids any visits to the hospital due to the rising number of COVID cases.
Since Barry still lives with mum, he took her to the hospital and updated us in our group chat about mum.
Mrs Lee's surgery was smooth and successful and I was relieved in many ways -- chief of which, that she was perfectly fine.
Deep down, I was also secretly relieved that I'm legally bound to not visit her in the hospital.
I was given an impossible task at work to handle and the long and short of it was, it could make or break my career.
I was at my lowest point in my work life and I knew my world was shaky.
Only my partner of 20 years J and Barry knew the details. My sis only had a rough idea. Stanley my sex bunny friend knew a bit here and there and had been quietly supportive.
So imagine that it's a big load off me when all I needed to do to fulfill my filial piety duties were to make video calls and nod at mum's repetitive stories about how the service at the hospital is top notch, and how she would pause in mid-call to boss the nurses around (can you pass me that cable? And the orange juice earlier was too sweet. This one is my son. This is the elder one. Do you have apple juice? And also, I want watermelon for tomorrow).
Those days were soon over, and Mrs Lee is to be discharged.
Barry and my sis couldn't take the day off so I ventured out to pick mum up.
She was wrapped in a back brace and could walk only slightly faster than a speeding snail, but she looked fine.
On the way back home, she already rattled off a to-do list for me. Buy char siew rice for me. Get a new thermometer. Help me sort out some of the food in the kitchen.
Oh yes, Mrs Lee is back.
Back home, I made her show me how she would go about the house, quietly standing by to catch her if she lost her balance while standing up from the sofa and waddling to the kitchen, and entering and exiting the toilet, and how she'd manage to lie and get out of bed.
For the first time in my 42 years of life, I am reminded by how frail the human body can be when you're old.
Despite mum's snow-white hair (she stopped dyeing it black when she retired over 10 years ago), there's little to indicate that she's getting vulnerable.
She had been relatively healthy, her mind still bright, and exceptionally sociable with her extensive network of friends, from your retired tai-tais who are always planning somewhere to go, to your bored, retired housewives who believe in all fake news circulating on social media.
But right now, little things such as how slow and frail she's become from a minor surgery is a painful reminder that this woman is spring chicken no more.
She's slow, frail, and aged.
Poot.
"Oops, sorry! A lot gas," Mrs Lee said cheekily, taking full pride in expelling farts.
She still has her wits.
Which makes it all the more poignant when she eventually grows even older, even more frail, and even closer to moving to her next property (a niche unit she and her siblings bought some time ago as their final resting place).
It feels helpless just to see this natural progression of the human life cycle.
It's like seeing the life of your loved ones slowly slip away, the way you can't hold on tightly to a clutch of sand on a windy day no matter how much you clenched.
Okay, I'm being very dramatic here, and all that's missing is the musicians' cue to start play sentimental violin in the background, but you get the idea.
The other thing that struck me too, was how it's not easy to be a caregiver when you have a full-time job.
Especially when your full-time job is stressful.
Spending just that one day with my newly discharged mum -- coupled with work hanging heavily on my mind -- gave me a glimpse of a grim but very possible future, if things went downhill.
The older she gets, the more she'll need to be cared for.
And the more we care for her, the less time we have to juggle work and family.
I am fully aware of caregiver stress, having been surrounded by friends who are going through that.
And the thought that it could soon be my turn is selfishly scary.
Sure, we can buy all the insurance for mum to buffer expensive healthcare costs. We can plan all the follow-up activities for her to get better. We can even plan our work around her schedule and medical appointments.
But in time to come, we are going to have to brace ourselves for the inevitable: That she's going to be so old and frail that her quality of life will be affected, and that some day, she'll be fully dependent on her children for her basic needs.
Knowing this -- and writing about this -- helps me manage the prospects of our unwelcome future.
But knowing this also helps me plan for what's to come.
And for now, the step-by-step roadmap for me is to ensure that I have the mental capacity and strength to deal with an ageing parent.
After all, if Mrs Lee can singlehandedly bring up all of us after our dad died of a heart attack when we were young, then surely, her children's combined forces can do the same to take care of her when she's old.
Knowing this too, is comforting.
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