What's the purpose of a funeral, the great Dr Sunny Goh once said, "The dead has left, what's left, is to appease the living"
It's my 3rd funeral in less than 3 months, 5th in the last 2 years, I've not attended this much funerals in my entire life.
My grand-uncle, who is my grandmother's elder brother, passed. He was like a grandfather to me, often cheering me and giving a pat on my back all the time when i was a kid. A great man who had no regrets leaving this world, leaving his wife, 3 daughters and 2 grandchildren.
Scene at the crematorium was beyond words, his wife, my grand-aunt, was absolutely inconsolable, cries of sadness became howls of disbelief and unwillingness to accept the loss of her most beloved man, a man who meant the whole world to her.
1st time in my life, I understood what mourning was, the shrieks of sorrow will forever be remembered.
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So what is a funeral for? His siblings came, and so did his cousins, as I stood at the viewing gallery, i began to wonder how should they be feeling. Is this a preview of how their life would end or is this one of the options they can choose to leave the world.
Rage began to engulf within as I couldn't comprehend the whole ceremonial rights or service whichever you people wish to called it, the Buddhist, Christians, Taoists, Muslims...
Who created life, who created death, who created religion? If as the bible says, one we leave our body, for eternity we'll be in peace with god, why must the living be suffering the loss? Why's life created to end? I simply cannot understand.
Religion on the other hand, to me, is a spiritual support for the less fortunate. Most of the believers, 1st Gen believers, often went through a stormy time before they became believers, which I've no objections against them. Different people seek support in different ways, some do it via earning gazillions of $$, some requires family support ...
The agonizing part is when religion takes facts too far, to tell doctors that I'll never pry open my heart because god will be there to save me, to tell kids that it's OK when bad things happened because god will forever be with us.
-What a fucking bunch of bull.
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A moment of reckoning;
I realized when situations breaches my emotional threshold, I automatically switches to the "Rational mode" instantaneously. Because I hate to feel sadness, sense of helplessness and to cry because I know there's no way back for the dead.It's like a shield i set up, unknowingly as I grew up.I broke down once, during my grandfather's wake, I never wanted to experience the pain ever. Now I know.
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