A Cry for Help - Too Late

A few days back, I saw a picture in the Straits Times & New Paper that I will never forget. It was a picture of 2 hands - the adult's hand was tied to the child's hand with a red string and they were lying on grass. As I looked more at the child's hand, it reminded me so much of my 18-months old Nina. The chubby fingers, the chubby palm that I would kiss so often while playing with her.

The picture was not one of happy memories. It was a picture of death. Both mother and child died. In fact, the mother and her 2 children, one 3 years old and the other 2 years old, had died a sudden death. She committed suicide by jumping from the 24th floor of a HDB flat and she brought her 2 little children with her. The New Paper featured the suicide notes that she wrote to her husband. Her story was about lost of love, trust and hope.

As I read her last words to her husband, I could sense her desperation to want something different. She was a housewife, looking after her children, cooking and cleaning for the family. He was the sole-breadwinner, whose work, I guess must have taken him away very often from the family because she said that they never had a real dinner together as a family. The last dinner they had was their wedding dinner. She had to be away from her parents who live in Singapore - looking after her children with no support from her parents or her husband. I guess, that must have caused her major depression. She wrote of beating her babies in her frustration.

I know of mothers who beat their children - not out to discipline but due to a sense of frustration, anger and despair with the children's father. Children are always the easy target for these mothers because they cannot retaliate. I just feel sad for mothers like her. She took her life and two other innocent ones. Others may just continue to abuse their children and be gentle with them when the fathers are around. It is pitiful. Maybe, these mothers do not have anyone to hear their sorrow or give them a lending hand. And, the fathers are usually given the impression that all is well in the family matters.

It is not easy being a mother and a wife. Our responsibility is vast. We are responsible for molding and nurturing our children into responsible adults. However, in most cases, we cannot do it alone. We need help. We need support. It is sad that three lives were lost because of no support. But how do we get support if we don't ask for it?

I am one of those mothers who used to think that I was a superwoman or could be a superwoman. I could handle anything on my own, without help. I needed no rest. Saying No to other request was never part of my vocabulary. So my stint as a housewife for 6 months last year was a real eye opener.

I learnt that I was not THE superwoman that I thought I was. I need other's to help and support me. I need to rest. And I will never get help until I ask for it. Because others may think that I could have handle it all on my own. Life is so much simpler and easy to manage once we learn to open our mouths and ask. No one has the ability to read our mind. And maybe, just maybe if that mother who committed suicide had asked for help (if not from her husband then from any other human being), her 2 young children could just have celebrated their next birthdays.