Friday, September 18, 2020
Trauma
I was thinking some days ago if 2020 will have the most number of deaths compared to the past years. The thought came when my mom was telling me of an unexpected death of a toddler that my parents know. She was speaking fondly of this kid who would give them sweets. In the past years, we have had our disasters; there's wars, refugees crisis, tsunami, earthquakes, and so many other issues, but this year with covid-19 causing life to be different, well life just feels different. You see the number of covid cases and deaths and when that number doesn't include someone you know, it's pretty much just a number, but then when you found out someone you know died because of it, it was truly sobering. That's what happened to me this week. I found out someone I know got it and I was like gosh! I heard he was in ICU on ventilator and I told mum that it's traumatizing for us. Then an early morning text from mom told me that he had passed away. It's really sad and heartbreaking. Any deaths due to whatever cause will be hard to deal with and heartbreaking, but when I think about covid patients, I just feel it's really really sad. It starts with you gettting separated from your family or loved ones when you enter the hospital and the process is very fast, once you're in, you just have to say goodbye and hope it's not for long. Can you imagine what that goodbye is like, no hugs, no last touch, no chance to physically see people that you perhaps really want to see. Then if you get worse, you spend your last few days away from from anyone you know and then the burial will be done fast too. When I think about this person I know and his family, I just feel so sad, so sad. As mom said, we may think we have it hard, but there are others who have it harder and after having to deal with my dad dying this year, I guess I just feel so much more about death, the process of it, and I feel really sad for this family. The usual Indonesians, we just have to lean in to God, but traumatizing things like this can really shake your faith. My cousin was telling me that when she hears the ambulance sound now, she feels stressed out. Without we knowing it, some things are slowly traumatizing us.
This was not the post that I thought I would write, but there it is. 2020 is ruthless. I've also been thinking that I've been saying 2020; as if when 2020 ends, things would magically get better. What if it doesn't? What if things will just stay this way, awful? Yes, my default mode of despair and pessimism are really not fun to be around with. I'm sorry.
The post I was planning to write was that I finished reading
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. Somehow I don't think I was fully there when I read this book. I didn't get the connections between characters right away even though they are mentioned explicitly. I don't know what's with my brain. I didn't particularly like the ending because it's sad. It deals with subjects that I have no knowledge about and now I'm quite interested to know more - the Chinese Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. I was 7 when the Tiananmen protest happened and I have no recollection of this whatsoever. I don't recall seeing this on TV. I don't know if it was featured a lot in the news back then in Indonesia. A big part of the book was about people who lived through all the brutal changes from the Great Leap Forward to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and it was quite fascinating to me. Fascinating may not be the correct word, but I'm sorry I can't think of another word. The trauma one faced when they experienced or witnessed things like struggle sessions or being forcefully sent away to work camps, it is remarkable one survives all that and even more remarkable perhaps to have had hope that things would change during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and when that hope was brutally dashed too, well I really wonder what do these Chinese who have gone through all that really feel. I am really interested to hear more about the stories of these people, but I don't know if there are really out there, perhaps they are banned? I realize I don't know much about China. Anyways reading the depiction of 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, I can't help thinking about the Hong Kong protest too and how like they really don't stand a chance. China feels like a country which will get its way, no matter how brutal it has to be or how much hurt it has to inflict on its people. It is kinda weird because any country is about its people and if its people wants change, they should be able to make it happen, but again and again we see this is not happening, not just in China. You live with trauma, though they may never fully go away, but overtime maybe they just harden you and allow you to just get up and move on and maybe have hope again.
:) eKa @ 10:44:00 PM •