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Sunday, June 19, 2005

Cremate.

Cremate.

Back from town.

Was at Scotts Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf discussing about PW.
That'll really change my perception of coffee houses now that practically every PW meeting my group has is in a coffee house.

Then again, if I don't drink while I'm there with them instead of my friends, what the heck.

Hmmm...well I must say that, even though one group member failed to turn up and another was grossly late for no apparent reason [I was late cos I had to rush there from Mandai crematory.] , today's meeting went about quite smoothly.

Guess we all needed time to well, 'grow into each other'.
Whatever that meant.

Or maybe it's just because we were in town, in a coffee house[my favorite one in fact] and not in that bloody dingly stuffed up class room of ours.

We all contributed-ok some of the ideas were lame and cruel and totally irrelevant, but nevertheless, contribution was made! And we managed to get hour agendas going in the right direction.

Another plus point.
We ended early!

haha~I'm such a slacker~

Anyway, woke up damn early today.
9:30 am. [It's the holidays for goodness sake! and XY ISN'T HUMAN! lol~]
Supposed to wake up an hour earlier but you people know me, 10 phone calls wouldn't mean a thing ,what more 5 alarm clocks.

Got there around 10:30.
Sat around stoning while relatives go "WAH! YILING AHHHHH?!?" .
Erm. Yiling's my Chinese name.

I guess that's cos I rarely show up around family functions, gatherings and stuff.

Then came the usual questions.
"How old are you now?"
"What poly are you attending now? "
"JC AH??"
"Which JC?"

sheesh.

So I took out my PW stuff and started highlighting all the important stuff while my relatives yakked away in hokkien and my other cousins yakk away about stuff which doesn't concern me much, or should I say I don't care about.

Later on , all of the sudden, this guy in charge of the funeral[I don't think he's my relative] asked all those younger then my dead cousin to come forward.

Then he handed all of us a joss stick and told us to knee,stand,knee,stand,knee,stand..........then bow,bow,bow.....

After that my dead cousin's siblings [who are also my cousins] lead us to walk around the coffin , followed by the same knee, stand thingy.

Gosh. I know I'm not exactly the best Christian around, but did you have to shove that joss stick into my hand??

Nvm...take it as a sign of respect then I thought.

Everyone was told not to cry. [for some religious belief I don't know about.]
But most still did anyway.
Afterall, on such occasions, it's difficult not to cry if the dead party's someone close.

The SAF gave my cousin's passing away seemed like such a honour you know.
There were these officers [all at least 2nd sergeants] in no. 1 uniforms helping out here and there.
They even took umbrellas to shelter my cousin's immediate family members from the heat.

Not to mention they draped Singapore's flag over my cousin's coffin before sending it to Mandai crematory with all of us following behind before we got onto the bus.

There were loads of bystanders just watching.
Singaporeans.
Tsk tsk.

When we reached the crematory, there were over a hundred more SAF soldiers there.
All clad in no. 1s too.
There was a military band playing mournful music in the background while another squad had an arms display.
Kinda like National Day, but not as happy.

Inside the crematory, eulogies were being recited [found a whole lot of grammatical and vocabulary mistakes,English AND Chinese.] by yet other cousins whom I just found out I had.

Shame on me, yeah I know, pity I don't feel it.

While we were paying our last respects to him before he got sent to the incinerator, guns were sounded off.

Kinda made me feel proud of this cousin I barely knew.

All I knew[ from his eulogies] was that he was this joker who called his sister a fat cat.
OK. That was just part of it, but it kinda struck me how informal that was.
How raw that emotion must have been for the person writing that eulogy that he/she actually committed so many grammatical and vocabulary mistakes.

I know I really shouldn't be focusing so much on the grammatical and vocabulary boo-boos made in his eulogy, but it kinda brings home the point about how open their hearts are, how they're just letting it bleed and cry.

At the viewing gallery where everyone gathered to watch my cousin being sent to the incinerator, many of my relatives just broke down and started crying his name.
So heart wrenchingly painful that it made everybody, even some of the officers ,cry. It even made me cry.
And I barely knew the guy!

So yep.
A day at the crematory before zipping off to town for a PW meeting.

I wonder what my funeral would be like.
What would my eulogy be like.
Who would deliver that eulogy.
What would I be remembered for.

Or would I even be remembered in the first place?

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11:50 pm