Grieving

Juz came back from yishun columbarium for my dad's 100th day prayers. tdy's the 99th day since my dad's demise.

time flies. for the living, we grieve but life goes on. grieving doesn't stop after a specific event or timespan. i am amazed by children's resilience & rate of recovery. my son was wif us at my dad's death bed. he cried & grieved wif us. but a couple of hrs later, when i started to cry again, he told me "Mummy, stop crying. U cried a lot juz now"

during the wake, he was very upbeat & cheerful. he asked to see 公公 repeatedly as the coffin has a "window". he wasn't afraid at all & slept by the side of coffin.

as we burnt joss paper, he suddenly told mi, "mummy, u lied. 公公 is not in heaven. he's still here." with tat, he pointed at the coffin. i tried explaining tat 公公 will be cremated after the wake & he'll be gone for good. i guess my explanation was lousy coz he concluded,"so the 公公 in heaven is real & the 公公 in the coffin is fake." i love him for his candidness but i really haf no answer to his questions.

is there an afterlife? i can onli hope so. how can anyone noe for sure? but still, we muz gif the dead the benefit of the doubt. i do hope there's afterlife & my dad is happy wherever he is now. hopefully, he is in a better place.

believing in the afterlife also gifs us an opportunity to continue show our filial piety by preparing offerings & burning joss paper. i always feel tat all the praying we do is more to let the living feel better. the actual benefit to the dead is anybody's guess.

wat i find useful,is not to tink abt all the things & places my dad didn't do or go.
i tell my mum tat we should be glad he had tasted food tat he liked, done what he wanted to do & been to places he wanted to go to.

now my dad is quite the seasoned traveller & he used to travel & work overseas in Brunei, HK & on ships in his single days. my mum is quite the opposite. she never wants to go anywhere unless we force her to go. i never realised how much my mum loves my dad until i see her grieving & doing everything she can for all the prayers. maybe being asians, it's difficult for us to show affection so we can onli express it thru our concern for the well being of our loved ones. hopefully it's never too late to tell someone u love him/her.

the story of my life continues but i noe my dad is watching over mi & his love for mi doesn't stop. i'm juz very glad tat i realised the pain & 无奈 of 树欲停但风不止，子欲养而亲不在 a few yrs back so i've spent some quality time wif my parents.