The Funeral

I left my office looking forward to meeting my friends later that night. What transpired next was way beyond my expectation. I had to call everything off after mom alerted me of the news. Everything seemed so surreal – I ended the call with a tinge of disbelief, and even told myself that I would only trust my own eyes. It was only last week we had dinner together; he was all cheerful and healthy.

If I were to compare, grandpa had been the closest to me. I used to live with my grandparents in Alor Star for a good number of years; before we all moved to the Klang Valley and settled down. Being the eldest grandchild of his, I knew him better than my sisters and cousins did. It was a heart attack that he suffered from, and I really admire my grandma for her strength throughout this whole thing. She was trying to keep him alive during the fateful attack, by doing all that she could think of at that time.

I rushed over to their home after dinner with Alicia, and was greeted by my beloved grandpa in the living hall, lying on a mattress as if he were sleeping. Grandma cried when I greeted her. It was depressing. Shortly after, uncle arrived, and ‘depressing’, then, became an understatement. I couldn’t stand being in the living hall so I went into the guest room to relax. I stayed on in the house throughout the night, and only made a trip back home once – to pack my stuff over. It was going to be a long night.

Had a quick shower and quickly put on my black tracks and white polo tee. We all had to adhere to this colour scheme. Two police personnel came to take a look at grandpa. Shortly after that, the ceremony began – Buddhist style. We were told of all the do’s and don’ts, and performed prayers – all the way til 6am. But I had to excuse myself and took a short nap at about 4am – I hadn’t slept much since the day before. I was really fighting hard to stay awake.

I asked for a one-day leave from work. More prayers. Even less sleep. And family members, relatives, friends, neighbours and flowers arrived. Even the man who sold vegetables at the wet market came. By this time grandpa was already in a casket, with a lid opened so we could see his face. Incidentally, about 3 houses away, there was a wedding dinner – with canopies and all, just like ours. Smacked right in between these two houses was a small lane. Once, I saw a car coming out of that lane only to reverse all the way out again because on its left was a wedding dinner and on the right was a funeral. Imagine the shock.

We left for the crematorium at about 10am. The funeral procession was chaotic. Hazard lights (double blink-blinks) did not work well for us. Sometimes I had to turn them off to use the single left and right indicators so that I could weave in and out of traffic more easily. It didn’t help that some parts of the journey were badly congested. Saturday traffic, you get the idea. We did everything there was to be done for the day, and returned to help clean up my grandparents’ house. And then the old folks started talking about tall perks and how I could help clean the ceiling fans, replace the curtains, etc.

I offered grandpa a josstick before leaving for home. Had tonnes of unread emails related to work, toastmasters and crap, even my blog. Some comment-spams. But they were the least of my worries. I’m still thinking how I’m gonna remain a vegetarian for the next 7 weeks. It’s going to be difficult. Even mom offered that only the closest family members adhere to this – that is to say herself, grandma and my uncles. Anyway, to my dear friends, I’m sorry for quitting the PD trip last minute and canceling our appointments on Thursday. You know who you are. It’s just one of those days when you can’t do anything about something.

And grandpa, you will be very dearly missed.