when i first came to singapore, my brother and i stayed with a family who's said to be distant relatives. they turned out to be much more than formal guardians who signed my consent forms. i call them atio, akow, choon kiat koko, yeeleng cece, sokleng cece, and sebastian. when none of them was at home, akow's dad would come over and help to take care of us. i call him lauku.
lauku passed away on wed morning. i am not particularly close to him, and honestly, i haven't even seen him in years. but his news gave me flashbacks of the times where he'd wait for rv schoolbus with me in the voiddeck, and the times of eating cut watermelons in chinatown. i can still pretty much recall his house, and strangely, his voice.
i went to the wake 2 nights ago with mel and 2jie, and i seriously didn't know what was the appropriate thing to say. am i supposed to say"hey, it's okay..." or what? things are not okay.
but when the time comes, i didnt really have to think alot of what to do. they made it easy really. i was just quiet for awhile and, and sokleng cece looked at me and said "it's okay, just have to be strong." and atio akow were pretty candid, asking me the usual questions of hows school, hows papa mama, koko, etc. and they were open about how lauku's death came about, and were describing his last days- how he was unable to eat for many days, but when his favourite grandson came back from overseas, he could finish a $4 orh-luak by himself. choonkiat koko even joked that it's a fortunate thing that school term's over... because it meant that my prof will not need to see me anymore.
i can see that their eyes are red and tired. but noone was crying while i was there.
there's indeed a time to be born and a time to die. a time to mourn, and a time to laugh. there's also a time to pray.
i don't remember ever praying for lauku, and i know i don't have the chance to do that anymore. but i know i can still pray for laukim. i don't know how life will be like for her now that her husband is gone. last week she was robbed in the lift and her head was hurt while being pushed away. she neither want to stay with the children nor want a maid at home. i also don't know if she'll ever come to know God. i wouldnt know, but i should start praying.
there's a reason why the very people we meet are put into our lives. family, friends, girlfriend, boyfriend. enemies. let's pray for them, and for whoever is in our mind right now. there are 6 billion people in the world and we can't know and pray for them all. but we can pray for those few that we encounter each day. one day if we are able to do that, then we can go on to praying for people whom we don't know. praying does not guarantee salvation. God decides. but we are told to do our part to pray. and more than that, to act and live our prayers.
one more thing, we always assume that our grandparents will die before our parents. and that our parents will die before us. and we will die before our children. if you have never thought about this before, take afew minutes to think about, what if, just what if, you die tonight and find that there's more to life than what is here?
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