Monday, August 30, 2010

白事

I attended 2 funerals in the month of August 2010. The 7th lunar month. It is a month of increased death rate I thought. Everywhere it is.

I felt numb. Numb to grieve.

Humans are such fragile beings, susceptible to tons of known or unknown diseases, illnesses, accidents, disasters and whatever else. Almost anything can take us away anytime.

We may chat and laugh happily now, and the next moment, he/she is gone, like FOREVER. I still cannot comprehend the life processes. A real physical form standing right in front of you, filled with emotions and feelings, with thousands of nerve endings, intelligent or not, self aware of himself/herself, takes up space and breathes in air, made up of millions of living cells and inflict reactions and feelings of others causing chain reactions in the world, can just disappear from this dimension and reduced to ashes in one flame. Who invented cremation? Not that it will be any better with the burial option.

You took the person away from this dimension, but who is going to take the memories created with the person in it?

My granny said, when a person dies, he’s gone, leaving the sufferings to those who live on.

There’s something else that puzzled me.

During the funeral ritual, the priest said, once you(referring to the deceased) crossed the bridge, all ties will be cut and forgotten, I’m not sure which bridge, but what puzzles me is that, if all is forgotten, do they remember us when we offer our prayers?

For as long as I live, I wish to remember them, no matter if grieve is what it brings along or comfort that it gives to the heart, it’s part of me.