Ghosts of Christmas Past

Tonight will be a very sad Christmas Eve.

Yesterday, mum called me and sounded unhappy, hesitant and a bit in shock. She said: Some sad news for Christmas...

I immediately thought it was my grandma, who while out of hospital, is clearly slowly fading, you can almost see all her systems shutting down slowly - the hospital's report had indicated a failing liver, failing kidneys, chronic heart failure etc. So we had all planned to spend a quiet Christmas Eve with her in her tiny 3-room flat tonight. Dad's recent bypass, my grandma's fall and hospital stint etc, made it clearer how fragile everything really was. I think we all just felt a need to be close this Christmas.

Then came Mum's call yesterday. It wasn't my grandma.

Mum sort of hesitated then just blurted out: Marcus is dead.

My 28-year-old cousin is dead. Killed in a motorbike accident in Johor. The information came in short phrases. Aunty P is understandably distraught, heading to Johor to retrieve his body and making funeral arrangements. We'll still gather, mum added, on Christmas Eve as we planned - just celebrate with Popo and keep her company... she trailed off uncertainly.

So many questions - what was he doing there? Who was he with? A bit of futile anger: didn't he learn his lesson? He had a bad bike accident some years ago already - why continue riding? Who called Aunty P? Wake details? No answers for now. Some answers of course, we will never get.

Christmas Eve will be quiet and very sad. I don't think my aunt will be there tonight. But we will feel the gaps very keenly. Our family has always had this tradition every Christmas Eve when we gather. Its been so for as long as I can remember. After our usual makan, we will open presents. We usually go from the youngest to the oldest. And as each one opens his/her present, the cameras would flash and catch us with gleeful Christmas beams as we survey our haul for the year. Marcus would always be part of this group.

Later as I grew up, earned money as a working adult, had kids of my own, I would buy gifts for my younger cousins like Marcus and so the tradition would continue. It was always a struggle buying something for him because we were not close - there was an 11-year gap between us. He is the same age as my brother. But he dutifully grinned and thanked me for every crappy t-shirt, key-chain, toy that I would get for him. The last Christmas gift that I ever got for him was a small wooden IQ game. That was two years ago because Marcus didn't turn up at our Christmas gathering last year. This year, I debated about buying a gift, not sure if he would turn up. I decided not to, believing he wouldn't.

As I told mum: Maybe if I'd bought a gift, expecting him to show up, all this would not have happened.

But then I reflect and think: who am I to be so significant and so prideful to think that a gesture of mine would have stayed the hand of God? God would have taken him no matter who did what.

My feelings of sadness are very disjointed. No, I am not close to him. But we shared some threads of a common history. I see Christmases past. I see him as a child - geez he was an ugly baby - but he had a good heart. Always a kind boy. He was thin and scrawny, dark with eyes that looked too black and too big for his narrow face. I see him with my brother - all of us, still children, in a chalet on Sentosa. I see him carrying my baby (I can't remember which one - he was always very patient and gentle with all of them) - knackily, gingerly and I remember a voice (one of my uncles) saying Wah Marcus you know how to carry the baby so well! I see him in images of Christmas past. I feel for my aunt and my uncle - to lose him so young. As a mother myself, I ache for her. I dread to think what it must be like, painfully impossible to imagine the kind of hell they go through. It does not matter what age the child was, for how long you've had him. If I can see the ghosts of Christmases past, what more my aunt? More than Christmas - from the day he was born, big milestones and the most insignificant and mundane of events - she would have to suffer through all these.

And when this happens so close to Christmas, you know that Christmas will never be the same again.

Why is this year-end so awful? 2007 can't end soon enough for me. Hopefully 2008 will be better.