Photo Booth (Part 2)

Funny isn't it?

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On a sombre note, I realise that my grandmother's photo used for her funeral (I am not sure what is the English term for it, but the Chinese term is "遗照".)vaguely resembles the Da Vinci's world-renowned masterpiece, Mona Lisa.

Just like the portrait, my grandmother's photo, when viewed from afar, depicts her smiling, albeit faintly and to some, bashfully. However, upon closer "inspection", one would be amazed how her smile would disappear, and instead what you would see in close view would be a stern expression.

Ditto for her eyes. Only that Mona Lisa's eyes do not have such amazing ability to change emotions.

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When I told people about my grandmother's death, many people asked if I had shed any tear.

I didn't. Not a single drop. Nor my eyes were wet at any point of time.

To which they probed further, "so, you are not close to your grandmother?"

I won't say that I am very attached to my grandmother, after all with my heavy workload in school and the irresistable temptation of hanging out with friends at town, I seldom visit as frequent as before, when I would visit her once every week. My visit became more frequent last November-December holidays when I visited her twice per week.

Once on Wednesdays, the other on Saturdays.

The increased frequency of visiting her in the last holidays probably stemmed out of guilt, that I have neglected her rather badly over my 4 years of secondary school life.

Back to my relationship with my grandmother. Even though I wasn't as close to her as that during my primary school days, I still feel something when she passed away.

It doesn't mean that I am not sad. Shedding tears doesn't necessarily always indicate that you feel sad, or that you are very attached to the deceased.

For your information, there is this profession in which the people in this line will attend funerals and start crying for the deceased. And they are paid.

I don't cry, but that doesn't mean i am not sad. Or I am not attached to her.

I am not THAT heartless after all. There's a relationship going on between my late grandmother and me, and I could sense that loss when she moved on.

I don not understand why people would gauge a person's feelings by his or her superficial actions or expressions. You can't read his or her mind, his or her inner thoughts are not revealed, perhaps they choose he/she to reveal it, so what makes you made that hasty conclusion?

毕竟，你不是他肚子里的蛔虫，你根本就无法知道他在想些什么。

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For the past 2 years, my grandmother did not step out of her flat in Hougang.

Not a single step.

For 2 torturous, tormenting years, her life has been confined within the parametres of the four walls of her four-room flat.

And it's weird to return to the flat one day, only to find a missing soul in the flat.

The flat used to be occupied by my grandmother, my eldest cousin and my eldest uncle. Now, only 2 persons lived there.

It felt empty.

And we no longer "go to grandma's place". Instead, it's "we go to uncle's place.

And whenever we leave the place, we used to bid goodbye to my grandmother, my eldest cousin and my eldest uncle.

Now, we have one less person to bid goodbye. It felt really really weird. I even walked to my grandmother's room, wanting to say "bye bye ah ma", only to find the room empty.

Perhaps it's the 10-year habit that has been changed all of a sudden that has made us uneasy.

就真的很不习惯。突然间觉得生活好像少了点什么。

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P.S. Sorry for all the disjointed entires about my late grandmother. Thought and emotions are flowing like never before. Do pardon me.