Eleanor Yap
Mylene Ng was initially working in the corporate sector and had a busy work schedule. However, she found it hard to balance her work as well as her caregiving role to her nanogenarian parents. So, in 2006, she took a big step to quit her job to focus on caregiving her parents as they were not only getting on in age, but they were subsequently immobile.
With no earning power and living on a budget, she made no qualms about her full-time caregiving role and taking care of her parents. She would take her immobile parents for medical appointments, manage their household needs, and take them shopping and eating (which they enjoyed) on weekdays or weekends.
She shared: “I did not stay with them as I have my own home and was managing two homes then. However, I saw them at least five times a week.” Her parents had a domestic helper to help with the household chores and to assist Mylene, particularly when she had to take her parents out as “I couldn’t handle two wheelchairs by myself”, she explained.
It was especially stressful when her parents fell sick or suffered from falls, and had to be hospitalised. It was also further challenging for her when her parents were no longer able to communicate verbally in their later years and she had to guess what they wanted through facial expressions and hand gestures. Nonetheless, it didn’t stop her from caring for her parents wholeheartedly. She was contented as long as her parents were happy, and she was caregiving them for approximately 15 years.
“Some days, I would take a short break though not often as caregiving to two demented, elderly folks was a full-time job. I saw them as my ‘children’ and would bring them along to shopping malls to buy clothes, shoes and to get groceries,” said Mylene.
She shared that in 2011, she tried to work part-time while caring for her parents but it was tough. “I chose to resign after a month so as to continue full-time devotion to my parents whose well-being was my concern.”
It has now been more than three years since she lost both her centenarian parents (her father of 103 years old and her mother 102 years old) – within the same year (six months apart). To date, she still feels the absence of her parents, especially during festive seasons and birthday gatherings.
“After they passed on in 2014, I did not resume work but opted to do voluntary work to help the poor and needy as I feel I still have lots of love to share,” said Mylene. She currently does voluntary teaching of English at a church, with classes for adult students, mainly foreigners working in Singapore. Her oldest student is 85 years old, while the youngest is in his 20s. In addition, she visits elderly who live alone, as well as those in nursing homes, and distributes bread to the poor elderly living in one-room flats.
She wrote a poem which sums up her caregiving years:
A WRITTEN EMBRACE
Love and hope, with all my STRENGTH
That is how my caregiving days BEGAN
Without caring when it will END
I quit my job for a caregiving PLAN
For my parents, it was MEANT
My caregiving years were all well-SPENT
Love from my heart with no PRETENSE
Some ‘skills’ are simply common SENSE
Patience is something that we LEARN
Understanding and respect may we EARN
Though caregiving was a CHOICE
Seeing my parents happy I REJOICE
Oh, I long to hear their VOICE
I wish they could ‘make some NOISE’
From doctor bills to wallet “BURN”
Fret not, we will be blessed in RETURN
