When Your Parents Are Dying

One time, I asked my father what we were supposed to do if ever he or Mama gets sick and on the verge of dying. Ever the fatalist, he nonchalantly replied that we should just let him or Mama die.

I remember that conversation because Lola Sayong, my mother's mother, had recently died then.  And every one of her children spent their financial resources just to prolong her life when she was still dying on the hospital bed.

So, Pa, my belated response is: easy for you to say.

I remember Ma'am Che's short sharing during our trip to Gumasa last 2010. Her mother had become sick and was also on the verge of dying. Reflecting on that difficult time, Ma'am Che herself had admitted that she forgot about her finances and literally threw everything, savings and all, towards her mother's hospitalization (Spoiler: the mother's alive and well). For her, money was out of the question; everything must be done to keep Mama alive.

Why this impulse? Children presumably do this out of love for their parents and presumably because, each one of us, as a child, can never learn how to let go of a parent until they are buried six feet under. Simply put, it's human nature.