Sup3rnality

My father was away the day Spike died. He was in Sarawak on business and was not around to see Spike one last time. When my mum called him, crying on the phone to tell him that their youngest baby was gone, he asked her to videotape Spike in his eternal slumber. That was over 4 months ago.

For Eid, my family and I headed back to my mum's hometown in Kelantan. My dad brought the videocam with him just in case, who knows what might happen that might require immortalizing it in video? True enough, there were miscellaneous incidents that were so memorable to let them be forgotten with time.

So they were recorded into the videocam and when we got to Shah Alam to drop me off, my uncle and aunt asked to see it. My dad did the necessary rigging and we all sat around the living room to watch.

Since my dad rewinded the whole tape, we watched thevideo from the beginning, starting from a footage of displays from the Toy Museum in Penang. We were happily watching the videos when the part in the Toy Museum ended. The screen went all static-y and then flashed to another part of the tape. This was the part of Spike.

I saw him spread on the floor bleeding...I heard the bell of his collar jingling as my sister held it. I shut my eyes tight and covered my ears as hard as I can and shouted to no one in particular to shut it off. Sadly, no one moved fast enough and the memory of my baby Spike lying lifeless was tattooed in my mind.

I hated how no one reacted sensitively enough to stop my suffering. I know my mum had to actually see him dead, had to go through it alone...but God, I'm having a hard time coming to terms with this unbearable loss until now; I did not need the pain to come back tenfold. My mum could have done something rather than sit there transfixed and immobilized.

No one came to my aid as I cried out with such desperation to switch it off. Only my brother chided my mum for not erasing it off the tape and long after it was too late to blot it out of my memory, my dad came to fastforward the tape. By then I was running to my room, closed the door and rushing to the bathroom sink. I needed to shock my conciousness out of the memory with a splash of cold water to the face.

I stood there in front of the sink, looking at the mirror and seeing a person who has been hurting for so many months, finding no comfort from the emptiness of losing someone who meant so much.

I've been hurting so long and unable to find release that it's been eating me up inside. No amount of tears have made this feeling lessen. Grief engulfs me, embracing me and unwilling to let go.

***********

I can be the rock that holds people down, the medium in which pain flows through; I am a willing vessel for it, for I cannot stand to see everyone around me in pain. But when it comes to myself and the matters of the heart, despite me insisting that I hold them all in, what I really want is my own vessel to spill it all into.

I try to take on too much. I am the spiritus, animus, sophus and manus. All combined in one and leaving none for others to take. I prefer it that I am all, preferring to take all the burden upon my back. Both because I know that I am stong enough to wield it and because I need to be occupied with everything else to be the lion, so to not let emotions get the better of me.

After all is said and done, the truth is, I am a comfortador.

All that holding people together, the want to see it through with others...One would see all of those things in me; but the thing is, under all that layers that I hide under, I myself am a seeker of a kitestring. This kite wants to be tethered and not fly too far.

When all falls down, I am a comfortador.

And I have yet to find what I'm looking for. Or maybe I have, and I've let it go. And sometimes I wonder whether I'll ever find it.

My emotions I keep in check all the time, not letting anyone on the outside bear witness to how raw I can lay them out. I keep them in me, hold it inside; for the sake of being the Heart. And being the Hand, I cannot afford to let my emotions get in the way of the work that I have to do. And my mind and spirit, it's that reason too; the want for my emotions to not interfere with what needs to be done.

So here I am, the comfortador. Looking for the one thing in my life that keeps eluding me and yet the same thing that I give to others freely without prejudice.

I hope I find it one day or, I hope I find it again. I'm starting to feel the cold creeping into me. I'm starting to feel the numbness that comes with it, and it's only on rare ocassions that warmth radiates through and melts the ice.

I am a Comfortador, but all you choose to see is my weakness. This does not make me weak nor breakable nor insignificant nor inferior nor just a girl. It makes me the person I am. It makes me human. Can I say the same for you?

Love, Lin~