it's a closure

grandpa passed away on 7 november 2013, thursday 5.30p.m.
at that time- brother was in kl. i was in the cinema in ipoh. only mom and dad were home to send him to his next journey. well, it was good that grandpa had them with him. it made his going more comforting....i hope.
brother and i were home the past few days before he passed away so i guess in spirit we were home.

how did he pass away?  of old age. he wasn't sick or anything. his system just shut down and from then on, it was slow deterioration of all organs. he requested for dinner to be served at 5 on the day he left. so mom and dad had to help him up on the bed and mom had to spoon feed him as his hand was shaking and he couldn't really hold the spoon.  but just a few spoons of porridge, he already couldn't swallow. so they let him rest. but after a while he had trouble breathing and was gasping.....it was more like puffing out those last few breaths of air in his lungs. both my parents were in the room with him and saw him go. so imagine mom having to repeat this story endless times when asked. gosh, i couldn't imagine being in her shoes. sure cry everytime.

i did not feel extreme sadness with his passing. to me, it was a relief for him because he had been suffering for the past few days before his demise. in fact, i was glad that his suffering ended. i even finished watching the movie (ender's game) before driving home. i mean, he had already passed on, there was nothing else i could do. everything only sank in when i was driving alone from bidor to tm. i was still chatting with the kids on the way back from ipoh....yes they knew about the news.
and of course the tears also flooded non-stop in the car. it was the longest drive ever for me and boy was i glad nothing happened on the road with all the blurred vision.

and the delay in posting here? well, it had been a round of hectic activities and nights and nights of not having enough sleep with the funeral arrangements. everyone was suffering from lack of sleep and we had uncle, aunt and brother and sister all coming back from aussie. so the house was full and we did some travelling to kl as well.

after the funeral ended, it was time to go back to work and continue with my exam paper marking which i only finished the night before i was supposed to hand in everything. it was the first time i was that slow. everything just stopped when the funeral arrangements started.

the funeral this time was a toned down version of grandma's. everything was requested to be as simple as possible.....after all grandpa was agnostic. i bet he didn't even want all the monks chanting for him.

our living room was turned into this area to put his coffin. very similar to grandma's. gosh.....everything seemed so familiar and i remembered every step of the process clearly in my mind. after all, we just had grandma's funeral last year during chinese new year. it was not even two years yet. that means another year of not celebrating chinese new year. three years in a row. so little to do then. hey, i can even plan for a holiday right?? haha

peanuts and water for visitors who come for the wake. all prepared by the company we hired to do the funeral....the same one for grandma's.

sweets packed in red packets for those who give bereavement money. can you see beanie there? he is tied in the house porch this time. he barked non-stop when we put him at the back of the house.

the canopy in front of the house.

we had prayers under the canopy this time and not in the porch as we were worried it might rain and water might drip from the holes in  the awning roof.

grandpa was 93 and chinese added 3 more years so on the lantern it was written 96 years old.

on the day of the funeral, sunday 10/11, it was even broadcast live all the way to melbourne to cousin and sister. see the two notebooks there on the television? they were watching everything.

the coffin was brought out for the final rites before entering the hearse. and the two notebooks also followed.

the hearse.
we followed in a bus. this time, the crematorium was in kepong.

it looked more modern and cleaner and less scary.

with one push of the button, done by uncle, the coffin was pushed inside and the 'work' begun. i heard that it took only about 1 hour for the burning.

once everything was over for the day at the crematorium, we had to wash our hands in flower water as a sort of cleansing if i am not wrong.

so basically that was it for the funeral.

the next day, we went back to the crematorim to collect the bones and sent the urn to the memorial park in rawang.

 those on the plate were skull bones while the others were other parts of the skeleton.
everyone took turn to put a piece of bone in the urn using a pair of chopsticks.

 the last one to go into the urn was the skull bone. the worker even had to break the big piece of bone into smaller pieces to make it fit into the urn. some pieces of bones were pinkish in colour.....due to certain mineral deposits.

and after everything was done, the convoy of 3 cars headed to rawang memorial park for the placement of the urn.

after performing more prayers here, the urn was placed next to grandma's by uncle, as the eldest son.

the end of our day's activity here.
i did not go back for the 7th day prayer (wednesday 13 nov) as i had to go back to work. the next round will be next year nearing the 100th day. i think it falls during chinese new year and we are advised to do it before that. might as well, since uncle and his family will be back again at the end of the year after christmas.

time to close the curtains. grandpa is in a better place now. i know he is. goodbye.