funeral

While my third aunt is one of my closest relatives, both distance and ties, her husband, which made him my uncle, was one of my most distant relatives. Ever since I could remember things, he had always given me the impression that he was fierce and not someone who could accept jokes of any kind. He was a man of few words, and I never really saw him smiled or laughed before.

Those around me didn't help either with their tales about how he would throw armchairs at his sons [my cousins] when they returned home late in their younger days. In fact when I was much younger, whenever I had to go to my aunt's house for whatever reason, my mother would first find out if he was at home. If he was, then there would be the strict instruction to greet him when I saw him.

Sometime back, he had a stroke. Because of his old age and his other ailments like a previously-operated-on weak heart, he never really recovered, and he passed away last saturday. I was tied down by work over the weekend, and so it was only today that I went to pay my respects.

Technically speaking this was the second time I attended a funeral wake, but the first time I attended my grandmother's in Malaysia, I was too young to recall much, so this was something new to me.

I was expecting the void deck to be solemn and serious, but no, the whole environment there was rather relaxed; in fact it looked a little like a family gathering. Small kids were running around, bigger kids were trying to study, adults were sitting around chatting. The cousins were smiling to guests and saying 'thanks for coming', one cousin's wife was busy running around wiping sweat off her daughter, while another was barking at her kids to finish their homework.

Living up to the true spirit of the typical Chinese, two main activities were still in effect regardless of the event: eating and gambling. Food was served to us, which included bee hoon, spring rolls, groundnuts, sweets, and the one dish that would always be present at funerals: curry chicken. Another aunt I met there kept telling me to eat more, because the curry chicken was jin ho jiak, and it was 'not everyday we get to eat such delicious chicken'. -.- And then there were the all-too-familiar discussions about the 4D numbers to buy.

I guess that when someone reaches old age, there will be the expectation that he will pass away sooner or later, as opposed to a sudden death from an accident or something. With that expectation, people will become more willing to accept the inevitable, and the sense of loss of someone will become lesser.

Life just goes on.