Beloved Grandma

Back from penang..
Was a tiring trip though for 5 days..

For the 1st time I've attend such ceremony with so many 'pantang larang' that we as the deceased's family..
Have to wear white for 6 days..
The whole day.. Yes.. White top, black bottom..

At nite, for 3 nighs, there will be this lady monk and her group of ' I dunno what you call 'em ',
Would come and say prayers for the descendant.
The family of the deceased would be advised to join them for the prayers..
And this prayer took almost an hour..
Sort of like sing song.. But We as humans I don't think we know what does it meant as it is actually sung for the 'dark angels'??

On the 5th day after her death,
There is this band.. Play for the deceased one...
Wasn't crying when there is no music or what it is..
But when they started playing,
Tears roll down, as my mum would say is, it sort of like make you ' xin luan' (I can't remember what you call that, however)

It went on and on, then, they come to this part of the ceremony where the coffin have to be moved out and to pay respect and make prayers before loading the coffin into the van and send grandma off to the cemetery area.
Then, we had to parade along the way for a certain distance,
Then board onto the bus to reach the cemetery area.

Once reached, we are to make our very last respect and prayers for grandma before they send her into the area where she is to be burnt up.
It would be better to keep her bones than to keep her in her coffin,
as humans, after death, being left unattended, would be filled up with worms and so on,
That's totally disgusting, therefore, burn up and keep the bones would be much cleaner..

On the 7th day, the family of the deceased one would need to collect the deceased bones,
As in pick it up and put it into this jar..
As we see on televisions, it would be the ashes,
But in this case, it would be bones, I don't know why, but its just to follow the tradition and beliefs to follow the procedures to ensure grandma not to be a wandering ghost, and all these thing that we are doing is to guide her to the correct place.

After that, the jar of grandma's bones are to be brought to the place where we place her next to grandpa.
It would be nice to see them both happily sitting next to each other after such a long time,
It has been about 13 years since my grandpa passed away.
Wonder has he already reborn as a new person,
Or he is still there waiting for grandma.
No one knows.

Grandma has already aged 83 and a half years old.
She is older than I thought she were, well, by a few years older though.
Seeing her sleep so peacefully in her coffin that day,
It may be good for her to rest from the world where she is blessed with grandchildren and even better 3 grandchildren.

I shall remember her sweet smile deep bottom in my heart where I would not forget..
I would always love and miss you grandma.!