Saturday, April 05, 2003

mortality reviewed

yep. jcs in singapore shall reopen on wednesday instead of monday.

whew! what a relief! looks like i shall go for the interview after all.

besides that, this morning my family went to my grandfather's grave for cheng beng. we left at a most ungodly hour (6am!) to avoid the horrible jams and reached there 1/2 hr later...only to find that it's still too dark to do anything. sheesh. so, we hung around until 6:40am while my cousin went to look for the grave using his handy torchlight. now, why is it that a 12-yr-old could think of a torchlight while anyone else couldn't? i really wonder...

once there, we went about our business clearing the grass, laying out the food, complaining about the vandals...you know, usual cheng beng stuff. we got everything done in about 1 1/2 hours, which is really fast considering we had to cut the grass and all ourselves, using just one pair of shears, two small parangs and two hoes. heh.

well, being there just made me think...i would definitely try to visit my grandfather's grave even when my parents, uncles and aunts are long gone, but after that...is anyone going to care? is my grandfather just going to be forgotten? will his grave be overgrown with grass so that even his tombstone is hidden?

most importantly...will all of us be resigned to that fate?

it just seems so sad. my mother told me this quite a long time ago, that when my grandmother comes to the end of her long, fullfilling life, our many family gatherings: winter festival, tien kong birthday, death anniversaries, some weird obscure taoist festival...will probably come to an end simply because we only have these gatherings because my grandmother is an old-fashioned taoist who actually bothers. once she leaves us for a better place, will the rest of us reluctant "followers" of my grandmother, bother too?

this greatly disturbed me, as i realised that it's inevitable. our little gatherings will soon cease to exist. we'll prob be those families that only meet up once a year: on chinese new year. soon we shall leave the grave of my grandfather abandoned and our old traditions forgotten.

lishun at 8:55 PM

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