first, we celebrated the 49th day of grandma's passing by having some prayers led by a buddhist master specially invited to the house and at the memorial park in rawang.
in buddhism, i think the 49th day signifies the final passing of the deceased from this world.
in the days before the 49th day came, we still diligently served grandma her meals on her altar and prepared water in a basin with a small towel for her to 'clean' herself every day.
this was the place. this morning she had fruits, beverage and some apam which aunt made. aunt was in the kitchen yesterday preparing steamed buns and apams for the prayer session today.can you see that yellow thing next to grandma's photo? is that called a tablet??
the buddhist master rewriting the names of ancestors on the piece of red paper which wsa framed....adding grandma's in the list.
so at the end of the prayer session where we also joined in, holding a joss stick each and bowing according to instructions, grandma no longer has her own altar on the white table, she has now joined the rest of the ancestors on the usual prayer altar.see the orange plastic bag? all grandma's prayer stuff are packed and taken away.
the yellow tablet, was burnt together with some prayer papers.then we headed to rawang where uncle, aunt and cousin came too.
grandma's new 'home'.
we also did a simple prayer ceremony here. again led by the buddhist master and each of us holding a joss stick. but this time it was much hotter with the sun hot behind our backs.....and it was a longer ceremony too.everything ended after that and we headed home.
what do you think of this photo??the flower reminded me of ah ma's pure soul and i know she is still blossoming in all of us.
ok now to grandpa's story.
he is in the hospital now as i am writing this. the reason? still unknown. he complained of abdominal pain and he went to the clinic. the doctor suspected appendicitis. aunt and wei brought him to tung shin hospital and he has been admitted. however, they are not checking him for appendicitis yet because there is no specialist in the hospital. they have only drawn blood for blood test.
so i guess we will only know what is wrong with grandpa tomorrow when more tests are carried out. aunt will be staying the night with him as my brother has a half-marathon to run the next morning.
haiz.....how can i now enjoy yunnan when i dunno what is going to happen to grandpa??
i will be leaving at 9a.m. on MAS flight tomorrow and will be gone for 1 week.
i will not be logging on to my facebook account and there will be no blog too as you simply can't gain access to these sites in china. but i will still be checking my mails when i get the chance and i hope i don't get bad news.
a big bag? only half is filled lah. i am preparing for some cold spell because spring is definitely not here yet. it is better to prepare for colder weather and strip off the layer when it gets warm.ok....time to continue packing. jai jian and hope grandpa is all right.
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