My goal for inspiremari.nl is to share mostly happy content, cute art, motivational posts and I refrain from getting personal as much as possible if it concerns something negative. But in this case, there is something I wanted to share.
Although I have obviously – like many people worldwide – been having ups and downs since 2020 given the worldwide situation about a certain virus, being stranded in the Netherlands while I had moved all of my belongings to the Philippines, something I tweeted about frequently back in 2019 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.)
Realizing I had no choice but to wait out the situation, I decided to make the best of it in the Netherlands. I had to buy a couple of new items that I temporarily lost to the Philippines, such as clothes (a new jacket, socks, shirts, pants, underwear, shoes), a new computer (and monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers), writing material (pens, papers), and more. Leaving behind childhood memories, photos, plushies, precious Pokemon card collections (Pikachu World Collection, holographic cards, Neo 1 GS card set), beautiful and expensive Gothic clothes I received from a cousin, gaming consoles and games (NES, SNES, N64, GameCube), language work books/study books, gifts from family and friends and more.
And then my dad got a stroke
It was his second stroke. The first one was 10 years ago, on December 25th, 2009. Initially, the hospital did not take care of him well, sending him home within two days, worse off than he was when he went there. The ambulance picked him up and brought him back. Afterwards, he was sent to a rehabilitation center for three weeks, where he learned to stand and speak again.
My dad, however, was unfortunately not able to recover back to the point he was at before his second stroke. Also dealing with diabetes (type 2) for over 20 years, he was now basically a patient in our home whom my mom took care of, which she did with love.
As her task of taking care of her husband was heavy, I started taking over more and more household tasks to relieve the burden off of her, as she often struggles with pain in her left leg.
And then my mom got cancer
If things weren’t bad enough, mom was diagnosed with cancer on December 21st of 2021. Luckily at the time of writing, she is doing fine (aside from pain in her leg, which she has been struggling with for years). But her diagnosis brings anxious and uncertain times for all of us.
And then my dad passed away suddenly
Three weeks later, my dad passed away suddenly. He had been struggling with pain in his right side and other minor(?) problems in the week before, for which he was given antibiotics and prednisolon (the doctor decided to treat him for a lung infection). When he finished his treatment, he felt better, but very much out of breath on Tuesday. On Thursday, he went to bed early as he was tired. On Friday, he suddenly passed away in the morning, between 11 and 12 AM. The doctor said the cause of death was cardiac arrest.
I have 35 years of memories with my dad, as lived with him my whole life. I will now continue to take care of my mom.
With permission of my mom to disclose the details about her and my dad, I dedicate this post to him. A small place mentioning him on my blog. Not the happiest post. But a happy memory.
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