Funeral

“阿麽明天要出殡了。”

才8岁的表弟兴高采烈的这么说着。脸上一丝伤感也没有。

在一个8岁小孩的世界里，死亡之属于蟑螂蚂蚁苍蝇蚊子，以及卡通片里的那个大坏蛋。

看到了表弟的天真无邪，在抬头看一看周围的大人，个个愁眉不展，为了要“守夜”个个都没睡好睡饱，脸上也透露了他们的疲惫不堪，有的甚至时不时眼眶泛红，眼泪在打转。

形成了一个好强烈的对比。

外婆逝世的那一天也是如此。8岁的表弟不耐烦地追问道何时能够回家睡觉，还兴致勃勃地扭开了医院里的电视来看，看腻了就在医院里四处奔跑，无忧无虑。

但在场的大人个个泪流满面的，正在为外婆的状况而担忧。

8岁的小孩，又懂得什么是死亡吗？

***************************************************

Honestly speaking, my grandma's death somehow came at the right time. It gave me a necessary break from my school life. A break that I had long desired, but certainly no deaths was hoped for to give me this break. (I am not that heartless afterall.)With her death came along some spare time for me to catch up with the fast-paced lessons by revising and spare time for me to catch up with the current affairs.

Perhaps it's another arrangment of Fate. For me to do some catching up. But at the expense of someone else's life, I find it not at all worthwhile.

But to think again, perhaps it's good for my Grandma to leave this mortal world, for she has suffered enough in this place. Perhaps what Miao has said is correct, death would liberate her.

***************************************************

When the Buddhist priest came to chant sutra for my grandother, my cousins were sceptical.

“都不懂它在念什么。”

“对咯。骗人的啦！”

Not that I am a staunch and devoted Buddhist myself (in fact I am a Taoist), but I feel that at such times, what we could only do is to believe and to trust. After all, everyone wants the best for Grandma. I mean, if all the monks and priest in the world are out to cheat you, what else could you do? We could only make ourselves believe that the prayer works.

During the entire sutra-chanting session, the family was arrnaged in hierarchical order. Grandma's sons were to stand at the front, followed by her eldest grandson. Then it's her daughter-in-law, followed by her own daughters, then her sons-in-law, and finally her remaining grandsons. She was considered to be fortunate by many because all of her grandchildren are boys. No girls at all.

***************************************************

The funeral procession took place last morning. A band was hired to play music for the procession. Songs include 《世上只有妈妈好》and some Buddhist sutras and some other songs of unknown titles, probably something beyond my generation. The sutras ended up sounding very contemporary and new-age-like, which, to me, doesn't sound right, especially during a solemn occasion like a funeral like this.

During the procession, shoes were taken away from us and we were only allowed to walk in socks, which are to be thrown away immediately after all the upcoming ceremonies are performed. In any case, the procession did not exceed beyond 100 metres, so it does not really matter for me to feel the sand grains and twigs on the ground. Soon, all of us were to board a chartered bus that ferried us to 光明山普觉寺, where my grandmother's body is to be cremated.

*****************************************************

This morning, we went to collect my grandmother's ashes.

It wasn't exactly what I had expected, that is, ashes in literal terms. The remains consist of visible bones, only that I have no idea which bone is which from that heap that was emptied out from a bag onto a metal table. I could only identify a hip bone and the skull plates. In any case, even though the remains was not what I had initially expected, it was also hard for me to accept that all that remained were just a few bones. I mean, my grandmother was an obsese person.

Then it dawned upon me that the human body is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. During combustion (cremation) and possibly under high pressure, the carbon and hydrogen compounds in the body will be converted to carbon dioxide and water vapour.

The person-in-charge was amazing though, as he managed to sort out the bones into different categories, the skull, the spine and the limbs, and well, the "unidentified"

After which, each member of the family present has to, using a pair of chopsticks, pick a bone and put it into a yellow urn. I picked a bone from the "unidentified" section. no reason behind it. It was just a random "impulse". But I think that part could be actually from one of her limbs.

Next, the person-in-charge emptied al the remains on the metal table into the urn and cap it up. It just suddenly occur to me that life is so cruel.

We strive to achieve so much, only to be reduced to nothingness (okay fine, perhaps ashes and bones are still matter so you are not THAT "nothing" after all).

We are consistently being told by the elders to eat more to grow "bigger", but only to be reduced to a heap of bones and ashes in the end.

We aim to achieve that six-packs, biceps and triceps, all only to be reduced to carbon dioxide and water vapour in the end.

We always have so much wants, ever increasing and we never seem to be satisfied. We all know that we would die, but yet we still want so much.

Human beings are so superficial.

So what if you are smarter than me, strgoner than me, more talented than me? At the end of the day, all of us would be reduced to just a heap of ashes. And bones.

It just make no sense for us to keep on achieving, only to lose them all in the end.

Sigh.

Life sucks.

********************************************************