~~~4 weeks~~~

Has it really been 4 weeks since I last updated anyone? 4 weeks of 28 days have flown by in a whizz with Jase and I busying ourselves with the 'normal' life. Jase has been busy going for make-up tuition daily and has taken a new found interest in golfing. I became the the tag along mom to all his activities. Trying to catch up on the last 3 years of his childhood that I had neglected and missed...

Everyday, there are moments when I am reminded of my lost child and I would tear pretty much anywhere and everywhere. But everyday, Jase and I are also smiling and laughing abundantly. We have fun traveling in the MRT first time in years. We had fun getting nearly lost on our first bus trip in years. We hung out at cafe having his favorite tiramisu cakes, watched all the kids movies and started to re-discover Singapore... once again. We have been living in Singapore but yet, our lives had been confined to mostly the hospital and home. We tried to pack as much activities for Char but it was still different. Our world was still different from the normal.

Now, we are back in the normal world, trying to live and fit in like everyone else. It's an odd feeling.

Here I am living the 'normal' life that I had prayed fervently for with no more daily inpatient stays, no more numerous hospital visits, no more obsessing with the magic temperature of 38 Celsius degree... No more witnessing my child suffer in pain, no more researching endlessly for the next step, no more horrifying scan-xiety... no more nothing...

I no longer have my baby girl with me.

I still follow numerous blogs on the updates of other kids still fighting this horrible beast called cancer. I get anxious when they have to go for scans, I pray with the mothers and fathers for good results. I read achingly of the many kids whose only wish is to stay at home for Christmas and be with their family... I feel so much for each and everyone of them... I was once like them... Fearing that the damn fever would strike at the worst of timings ruining a painfully planned schedule to avoid inpatient stays... Little things that mean the world to us living in the other world...

However, I'm now in the 'normal' world, looking in on that other world. I don't know what to feel. Are they in a better situation than where I am at now? Or am I in a better place than where they are at right now? I no longer live in fear of losing my child every single second of my life. My life and Jase's life are no longer dictated by the damned cancer and every chemo or treatment schedule. We can actually plan more than a few hours ahead now. We are actually spending Christmas in a place we chose and having fun.

We are having fun without our precious Char Char.
(Do you have any idea how sick and wrong that sounds to me?)

They, in the other world, have to continue to live in fear and continually ask for prayers to tide them along just because it's so damn tough. They don't know what tomorrow will bring. They don't know if the pain will subside miraculously or the pain will come on abruptly... They don't know if they will see another bump raising overnight... They don't know if they will see more bleeding... They don't even know if their child can even drink a sip of water...

BUT they still have that precious someone that they desperately want to hold and protect...

So, who's at a better place? You tell me. I don't know.

If I really have to pick, can I pick your world instead? Your world without cancer.

Why do both my worlds have to do with cancer and you do not. It's so unfair.
Why can't we have your normal normal world?

Do you even have any slightest idea how blessed you are to be able to hold your child in your arms right now and hear them demand about the most expensive and useless toy on world?

Do you know how much it kills me not to be able to say out loud that I would give anything to have my child back right now because I cannot bear the thought of her bedridden, immobile, in so much pain, semi conscious, unable to eat and drink, bleeding slowly to death?

All I want for Christmas is you...