Filed under: Uncategorized
Today I went for a funeral. It was my dad’s aunt who died at a 100 years old. Before today I’ve only seen her a few times and it’s usually during Chinese New Year. If I were to judge her from those few times we met I would say she was a kindly old lady with a good word for everyone. =/
The funeral was a Chinese one. One thing I don’t like about Chinese funerals is because it’s really lengthy with lots of superstitious traditions. I’ve been through a Chinese funeral and a Christian one for both my grandmothers. I have to say that the Christian one is much easier and simple.
Anyway, today when we were kneeling down in front of the chanting nun I started thinking. You know those people that comes to help set up the canopy and stuff for a funeral? Well I was wondering that since these people have to go through funerals almost everyday, do they feel any indifference towards death? They wake up everyday with the thought, "Oh, today I have to set up another funeral just like any other day." It becomes like some sort of daily routine for them, preparing a funeral. So does that make them immune towards death? Have death become something so normal and ordinary for them?
I just wonder …
Then that led me to thinking about something else. Me. How I feel towards the loss of someone close. The thing is I can get really emo sometimes and actually cry but in real life and death situations I can’t cry. It’s not that I don’t care or don’t want to. I do, but I just can’t. Like when both my grandmothers passed away, I saw everyone crying especially my mom. I wanted to cry to, to show that I too care. But I couldn’t. I don’t know if it’s bad or mean to feel this way but when I lose someone to death, it’s like I don’t want to believe or think about it. I don’t want to let it sink into me that I’ve loss someone. I choose to believe that that person has just gone away for a while.
I don’t know how to explain this. It’s like I choose to not want to think about the loss. And the loss I’m talking about is death, not the loss of a boyfriend to another girl. That one can really make me cry. But death…it doesn’t, maybe it’s because I never thought that I would lose that person and I’m still believing that one day that person will still come back.
For the first few weeks after my maternal grandmother passed away, I was still alright. Later on only then I started to feel the loss. Even now. Sometimes I think I’m unconsciously blocking out the thoughts of sadness and sorrow of losing someone because I don’t want to feel the grief. It’s like I’m unknowingly saving myself from totally breaking down from the realisation that I will never see that person again.
For a while I still did things that I did when my grandmother was still alive. Like I kept taking five spoons out for dinner when there was only four of us now. Then I would realise what I did and just stand there for a moment letting it wash over me. But then almost immediately I would dismiss it to prevent myself from falling into the bottomless pit of grief. Why do I do that? I don’t know. It makes me seem like a heartless and apathetic person who doesn’t care about who dies or lives.
But I do… I do feel the grief and sorrow. The thing is I just can’t cry.
