Life comes in a package!
Life comes in a package of sorrow, happinesss, hope and disappointment.
I receive the news of my grandmother death on Wednesday 5th Apr’06 during lunch time. Had a hard time stabilizing my emotions, not allowing tears to flow. But thinking that I will never be able to see her face, hear her voice. It was a lost that I can’t describe. It was a pain that I refuse to acknowledge.
I thought i can handle it, tried to finish my work for the day before i leave for the wake. But tears keeps flowing, send a mail to my boss telling him that i won’t be around. On my way home, friends call me but I refuse to pick up. What should I say? thanks? I’m ok? It’s better? i can’t thus i left it ringing.
In Malaysia - it was a very simple wake nothing elaborate like the one of my grandpa. I wonder why? I refuse to see my grandma maybe because I’m angry for her to leave without seeing me, angry why she could not get well, angry that i did not call back on Tuesday night when i had the bad feeling.
When i see my grandma for the last time, i could not recognize her at all. She looks foreign to me, like someone whom i have no recall of. She lived to a ripe age of 85, but the last 4 was plagued with illness. Initially, She has dementia then her lungs was infected with water. finally she is bed-ridden.
One of my friend ask me, if her death was expected. All death are expected. All death are not expected. How do you know when someone is dying? Another friend told me that a human body is a hotel for the person soul to be in. So i hope that grandma soul is in a better place now.
At the wake, there is the constant burning of "money", the chanting from the monks. Does it really mean anything? Does it makes her departure easier? Nobody can tell me for sure but I rather everything was done than not. The mood was even consider relaxing, no tears from anyone. I rather believe that the hurt is in the heart then on the face.
I’m amazed that We can still eat, still breath, still joke, still laugh. Does a death of a love one means anything? I don’t know really but life goes on. Just at what speed it does.
She was burial next to my grandpa. I pray hard that she is in peace. There are more sorrow that i will have to encounter in future but practice does not makes perfect. But that’s life.
Cindy
April 10th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Even if a death has been expected for long long while, we can never be able to accept death when it comes, and when it comes so near us…we all know we would die eventually but…when it comes, how many of us are able to face it with courage, i am one who can’t, thus I have to shift the plan aside, until then, if I once again have the “opportunity” and courage….
most things that we do for the already passed on are things that we do for the ones still living…the wake, it’s a ritual for prepare the living to live on…and grief before they move on…it’s a replica of how we live that we want our beloved to have, even if they are in another world…and most importantly…we can never prepare ourselves enough for the end of a life….