M (Putthipong Assaratanakul) & Amah (Usha Seamkhum) tell a heartfelt story of what it means to be a caregiver. PHOTO CREDIT: GDH 559

By The Red Pencil (Singapore)
01 Aug 2024 3:29pm

I cried in front of the big screen for the first time in a while.

The Thai smash-hit film How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies that made waves recently follows university dropout M as he moves in with his terminally ill Amah in a bid to secure his inheritance by taking care of her in her last years.

As he spends time with his stoic and sharp-tongued grandmother, a story of compassion, grief, and love emerges, and M learns there is much more to being a caregiver than he realized.

Watching How To Make Millions reminded me of my late grandfather, and put me in the shoes of a caregiver, even if only for a couple of hours.

I learnt of the daily sacrifices that come with tending to a loved one. I learnt of how I would come to know them and their habits inside and out.

And I learnt of the grief, if the time comes for them to pass on from this life.

It’s the story of thousands of caregivers in Singapore. In 2019, a survey conducted by the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) estimated that there were about 210,000 individual caregivers in Singapore, many of whom face significant stress physically and financially.

And sometimes, when their caregiving journey ends, they are left to navigate the turbulent waters of grief alone.

When I first joined The Red Pencil (Singapore), the Journey On programme was already well into its 6th run as a clinical art therapy programme designed for and targeted towards grieving caregivers.

The programme guides these individuals through processing their grief in a safe environment alongside fellows with shared circumstances, with its latest run being led by art therapist Calvin Pang.

Art therapist Calvin Pang talks about what it’s like to journey while carrying grief. PHOTO CREDIT: THE RED PENCIL (SINGAPORE)

He shared with us his experience leading the programme, explaining how although each of the participants began differing canvases and processes, they eventually drew closer to one another over the sessions.

“[The participants] interact with one another; the artwork interacts with one another. So over time you actually see the participants’ artworks speaking to one another – they have the same things in their artwork,” he recounted.

“And I think that itself honours the fact that grief is a very shared process. Even though it’s a very individual experience, it’s a very shared process because it’s very human.”

Calvin’s approach to the programme was to employ a method used in art therapy known as El Duende process painting, where the focus was on the process rather than the product as participants worked on the same canvas week after week.

The art therapist shared how the bonds of friendship that formed between the participants even extended past the four walls of the Creative Arts Therapy Centre where the sessions were held, with them meeting for meals at the nearby market before the start of each session.

“To have that – to witness that relationship forming within a group like that – it’s very heartening,” he said.

“The fact that they’re coming together outside of the space itself is actually essentially what we want. To allow them to support one another as fellow human beings experiencing losses.”

When we asked about her own experiences in the Journey On programme, local actress-comedienne Abigail Chay shared with us how she was able to express her grief.

”Art therapy is about you and your way of expressing yourself through art…I found that I have grieved through the artwork I’ve done in Journey On, where it represents all my loved ones whom I’ve lost,“ she said.

“In my artwork, there are cards that I have cut out that are words that, coincidentally, are words my lost ones have said to me when they were still around. For example, words like ‘do your best’ are what my mum always said to me as an encouragement. And ‘always smile’ is something my dad liked to tell me.”

Grief has the capacity of ambushing us, to paraphrase a portion of Calvin’s sharing.

Although I’m still a long way from experiencing the stress and potential grief of being a caregiver, even now, years after his passing, I’m still hit with sudden waves of regret and guilt that I wasn’t able to do more for my grandfather when he was still around.

And oftentimes when that happens, I’m tempted to sweep it under the rug and try my best not to think about it.

But I think the process of grief is more than about just making do with it. It’s about managing it, and moving on well.

“Sometimes you need to be in a space where you get to reflect. And I think with the grief process, a lot of times people are not given that,” Calvin said.

“They are told time and time again that ‘you need to move on; it’s already three months; it’s already six months; it’s already one year’. But what we want to focus here is really each of them – each of the participants – they are experts in their own loss…and that is what we want to honour.”

Journey On is an 8-week art therapy clinical programme for caregivers to guide them through the grief process after the loss of a loved one, aiming to allow the expression of complex feelings like grief and loss through creative arts in a safe space.

It will commence its next run on 6 August 2024. Programme slots are currently at maximum capacity. Please email programme@redpencil.org to be notified for the next run of Journey On.