Thursday 16 October 2008

Stories Of My Father For My Children - Part 1

Stories of my Father: The Amputee

My father lost a leg to Diabetes. There was an ulcer on his right foot that would not heal for months and we were in and out of the hospital all those time. We were taught by the hospital nurses how to do a dressing for the wound every day.

Eventually the infection got on to his bone and he had to amputate his right leg below the knee.

For a man who lost a leg, he never lost his sense of humour.

From the time they wheeled him out of surgery, the first thing he said to his anxious family was,
" Now I can join the cacat (handicap) race."

Another time, we were talking about buying shoes. He said he should look for another amputee who wants only a right shoe, then they can save a lot by sharing a pair of shoes.

"But," I said, "That's not so easy, coz you'll also have to find a GUY with the same shoe size."
Hmm.. and we had not even thought of style and colour preference yet. What about those offers where the second pair comes with a 50% discount. Could we just claim for one side for free?

Of course, because of his sense of humour, we would sometimes tease him.

There was a period he was worried about finances and would frequently complain aloud that he had no money. To that my younger sis and I would say, "How about playing your guitar in the pasar malam (night market) and we'll give you a bowl to collect charity from passers-by? You could even have the dog with you to pose as a blind-seeing dog (he was really losing his eye sight too)... or he could just guard over your collection.

An incident he found funny was when he took a trip to a temple in Klang with my mother and brother. While they were inside doing their rituals, my father sat on a bench under a tree waiting for them. A lady came up to him and offered him RM10. He laughed but very politely declined. He laughed for the rest of the day recalling this incident and we teased him that he should go get a lottery ticket.

One things he would say about his amputated leg was it's a "mow-ying-geok". In Cantoneses means "a leg without a shadow". More accurately, it refers to a kung-fu where the kick is so fast you don't even see a shadow of it. And with that he would be moving his stump around, mimicking some kung-fu moves while resting on his bed.

One of my father's lessons on life was to always be brave, to have courage. This was definitely courage in a circumstance of life beyond himself.

May we all find courage in our dark days too, and still be able to see the funny side of life.

11 comments:

Something About Us said...

Hi Moomykin, thanks for sharing your dad's story.

In life, there's alot of ups and down. It depends on us whether we can move on from a bad episode.

Your father is very brave indeed to move on his life so humourously (is that such word? hehe) and I salute to him :) I would like to learn his positive attitude towards life.

- Ling

Moomykin said...

Ling,

Thanks.

My father passed away in November 2001. He would have been a great and fun grandpa. So I put these memory in record for my children.

That's the main reason I blog. So that when they grow up they can look up on what they did as kids, things we went through as a family, etc.

I had another post on him:

http://moomykin.blogspot.com/2008/03/remembering-my-father.html

Ann said...

Wow....GREAT story of your Dad. No wonder his daughters turned out so well!

Someone to really look up to.

Moomykin said...

ann,

I think most of us have parents who really showed us how to live and how we can make a difference for our world.

Thanks God for good parents. Not perfect, but pretty good. :)

mil0chel said...

hi rachel,

shake leg.. @.@

*puts amp leg forward*

and i was like 7 ?

cre8tone said...

I think it's very good, to find funny and good side of life, during dark days~~~ That's how we really did survive until now...

JLow said...

It takes a lot of courage to put on a brave face like this. Either that, or he is a very pleasant character in nature.

Either way, i am sure it made life a lot more easier for everyone. I have heard stories of people in similar circumstances being really grumpy and creating a similar mood for everyone else...

Moomykin said...

milochel,

Yes, Kai lui, you were so young then, and he was always fond of you.

That's why he would tease you.


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little prince's mummy,


He always said it's sanity that counts. And I think seeing the silver lining in the clouds does help keep one sane..

Moomykin said...

jlow,

yes, it was his nature and his courage that helped.

There were days when it was very stressful, but whenever he could manage, and that is most of the time when we had things running in a routine, it was just a different lifestyle for us all.

Mumsgather said...

Your dad's courage is certainly something to blog about for the kids to read later on. Thanks for sharing with us too.

Moomykin said...

mumsgather,

Thanks.

I always think that who we are really has a lot to do with our nature and how we were nurtured by the adults around us in our vital years.