It's time to go home.

Byline: Juneita Johari

MY mother was finally coming home from hospital after being there for more than two months. She had been in a coma for nearly three weeks.

We were elated - initially. Mum would be home again with us at last.

Life would go back to normal. No more hospital duties. No more long hours in the waiting lounge. No more eating on the run. No more sleepless nights. No more emotional moments that would rope us up with hope and then plunge us down like a bungee drop.

The house was cleaned inside out as though it was Hari Raya. Everything was vacuumed, wiped, scrubbed and ship-shaped just the way Mum liked it.

She would not be happy to come home to a shabby house. She was always so house-proud.

Her homecoming was delayed several times because her condition did not allow it.

Meanwhile, we began to notice things we took for granted all this while.

We started taking notes of what we had to do when Mum came home. We wanted to care for her just the way the nursing staff at the hospital did, if not better.

While in the …