A different kind of New Year

I tried my best to hold it in when I listened to her cheerful voice. She was genuinely happy talking to me, even if it was just hearing my voice over the phone.

“I see… yeah, the other’s can’t make it back too…” hidden within her cheerful voice was a tinge of despair, hoping that there will be someone who disagrees with her statement.

I can’t help but wonder: Have I made the right choice of leaving Pahang and came to Johor? Leaving my loved ones back at Lipis?

It’s the eve of the Year 2021’s Chinese New Year. after finished my groceries and some leftover tasks from work, I finally able to sit down and start my holiday’s rest. It was a busy month since I started anew in this new workplace called Hospital Sultanah Aminah. Compared to my previous hospital in Kuantan, this place has different systems, different work cultures, and of course, a different game of politics. Well, I made a promise to myself not to distract myself again by involving too much in the latter, so I occupy myself with providing the best for my patients, especially those who requested to be my returning customers.

Still, I am tired. In addition to my hectic job, there are also other matters to tend to: my rental options, my wedding plans, my finance… the kinds of stuff that most 31 years old with a stable job wouldn’t even trouble themselves with. I guess starting anew means picking up the neglected pieces from our past, huh?

And there’s the big elephant in the room, or should I say ‘the world’, the COVID-19 pandemic. It got its revenge. We defeated it once, but somehow we lowered our defenses when we were eager to elect our leaders- or the leaders are eager to elect themselves? Are racial issues more urgent than a pandemic outbreak? Being a medical practitioner, I for one will chose the latter. However, I will let you be the judge of that.

When it got its revenge, it hit hard. When the toll reached 5000 in our country’s daily reported new cases, everyone panicked. Messages in groups rang, the social media was all over the place, both with speculations of what will happen to our gracious New Year plans.

I bought my train tickets back to Kuala Lipis 2 weeks before the news about another movement control order hits. When it did, I just lowered my phone and smile at my patient in front of me, who was having depression following her struggles during the pandemic. She was anxious and sad, so I have no room to express my emotions, not at that moment at least.

As soon as the consultation ended, I checked my phone again. This time, it was my parents, dropping messages to ask if I’m still able to make it back.

“I couldn’t, even if I want to, however badly that is,” I whispered to myself.

A lot of my friends and colleagues asked why wouldn’t I use my job as a reason to get a pardon from the police, to allow myself to cross the border? It should be easy to get their permission given my profession.

As if he too shares their belief, my father offered to summon me back to the army camp, which conveniently is at Raub, next to Kuala Lipis, using an official order from the Reserve Army.

I gently refused, while doing so, my heart aches as if it is pierced by a blade.

There is something one must stand for, call it pride if you will, but I can never break the trust people entrusted to me when I am called a Doctor. Every doctor’s souls are tested by the pandemic, I cannot abandon my post just for a new year celebration.

Besides, I might be a carrier and infect my love ones. I will never forgive myself if that happens.

That doesn’t mean it was anywhere near pleasant. It hurts, a lot, especially when being alone in a new place.

So after that, there was a brief exchange of frustration between distressed me and my short tempered mother. It’s the usual, nothing special about it.

Every night, my fiancé video calls me on the phone. She smiles and jokes, to cheer me up. I would do the same, because deep down, I feel sorry, for not able to be there when I made her longed for it.

That’s my girl, who I have to problem calling and chatting with her now and then. Unlike another, who I am afraid to call and tell her I couldn’t make it back to her this year even though I am within the country.

That woman is my grandmother, who is the one I mentioned at the start.

I am afraid, that I might lose it and broken down in tears when I tell her that. She made her concern heard when she said she is worried about me moving so far away from my family, all for the reason of career and some family difficulties. She asked me: is there really a need to leave?

“Don’t worry grandma, I will still visit you often! The train ride is easy, and my girl is here so I need to come back often too!” I said with a cheerful confidence, while enjoying her delicious cooking which i already learned from her but kept my silence.

“Chinese New Year I’ll be back, definitely,” I said before I left for the train station, at night.

Whenever I leave the town, if she knows, she will always look at me reversing my car out of the front lawn, keeps her eyes fixed on my car until I disappear as I drive down the slope. Maybe she hoped that the car would just stopped moving, and let us back to her side, not chained by our jobs and obligations?

I kept thinking: Have I done wrong, to be so far away from home, from my grandma, from my newly engaged fiancé? If solitude is my forte, why does it hurt so bad when I couldn’t be with them? Is there some sort of a silver lining amidst all these cruel moments? How am I supposed to heal my patient if I couldn’t even heal myself?

All these dreadful thoughts swept away when my grandmother cheered when she realized it was me on the phone. On and off, my heart still aches on the fact that I couldn’t make it back to her this year, but it was quickly countered by her optimistic remarks, her cheerful tone, and her hopeful expectations.

The conversation was brief because, for the first time in years, I just wanted to hear her telling me whatever, without my dull stories of being a doctor. All in all, this time, solitude doesn’t taste as bitter as the last time I was here, thanks to the two women I loved most.