Looking after your family

YOu know something boys and girls??? A leader is not one who inherits a position or claims a title. Being the oldest does not also allow one to say he or she is a leader. So when the energizer said that she was the leader of the family, I sorta allowed her to be one, but I was trying to hold things together from the back. The reason? If you feel you have nothing, are nothing and have nothing to look forward to, then you will waste away very fast.

That being said, I have now firmly insisted that I am the leader and that all matters will now be under my purview and I will make decisions. The reason?? Neither my sister nor mom are able to and should not even be asked to make any rational decisions. They just can't do it!!!

Imagine, mom asked me to transfer 20k to my sis because she helped pay for her hospitalisation. I know she is worried about my sis and also that she does not want to seem to owe her, but hey.... has she thought about where the bloody hell the money will come from for her chemo? If she kicks off soon and does not need chemo and so on, I will gladly start to share what little remains, but if not, I will have to be careful as usual and make sure that everything is well taken care of. Being a leader is not just giving instructions and feeling big or gud. It is taking responsiblity to ensure that things are done for the better of not one individual but the whole family. And that is where the real pain and headache is for me.

Old energizer is 71. She has no savings. Her medical will still be pretty heavy and will be so till she dies. When she dies, she will need to have a proper funeral too. So where is all the money coming from? She was saying that there are chemo drugs that will not make her feel sick and make her hair fall off. Many say that chemo will make her feel like dying. So now as the son and the default leader... what choice will you make? Whack the family reserves to give her a few more years? How many years does she have even without the cancer? If it is all used up, where will the money come from? And that is the bug bear that I have with the gahmen of our great society. They say that there are safety nets.... Where??? They say that people are living till older age... These are old women who have been housewives and have brought up the children of Singapore and they are not allowed any care from the state. And to top it all off, because of a few bad apples, there will be a law telling us to look after our parents... I have been screaming for help of an alzheimer's demented mom who now has cancer. If she loses more of her mind, will she even know that we are doing our best to treat her?

Her cancer has spread, so now is how to make the last years... or no matter how many years as comfortable for her. If she wants expensive chemo and so on... I do not know how comfortable I can make her... I will be dead broke and she will still be stark raving cuckoos.

And to top it all off.. Guess what, even for parental care, only 1 child in each family being allowed to get tax relief for looking after a parent... So my question is this... where am I left now? No tax relief, having to pay through my nose and yet having no support. How many of other people here have the same problems?

So brothers and sisters... I would say only one thing... This really sucks.. I am in a world of shit and pain and yet there is no way out.