A deeper level

Thirteen

Nothing can really help us prepare for dying – ours as well as those of our love ones. During the two night’s wake of my mother’s funeral, it was hard to keep a stable mind. In those few days my mind was dulled out with all that was going on around me.

There was the dead body in the coffin with its attending props and happenings. There were the people who came to pay their last respect, to talk, to laugh, to query etc…. Of course we were being watched and judged by all the eyes present as to the manner we were fulfilling our filial duties.

When we have to bury our parent, even when we can hardly keep a clear mind, nonetheless, at a deeper level, we can only trust our own understanding. This is the emotional consciousness we have gain from our parents, seeing how they went about doing things, sorting what was truly important and what was not, in their life.

But my mother’s ways of seeing things are her own and I look at things a little differently. What was for sure, to me, was that she had become the sounds of the chanting, drumming, talking, laughing and crying; she had also taken on as the smells of dead body, the burning incenses, candles and the fading flowers; finally, looking around, she appeared to have taken on the appearances of everyone and everything in the surroundings. Was it my hallucination?

This intuition that I was doing what I thought was most appropriate, at that time, for my mother, was all I had, to keep me going. But how long can I be sure of keeping this inner knowledge? What other resources will I need to help me to live and to die?

Connection

Twelve

My frozen body was brought back from the hospital to my last home. Now, I have two homes (actually every star is my home) and I can move freely from one to the other. It is hard for the living to grasp this state of being – to be everywhere, invisible, formless and in a sea of red. There is really no way of putting words to this transformation.

The three hired nuns, who chanted prayers at my wake for two nights, also helped those present to understand that there is a real connection being forged through the two evening’s activities. Of course, even then, as we were all acting it out in the rituals, in my former house, I and my children and friends could hardly believe that it had happened. Why has this to happen? The nuns in their natural way would say that my dead body is no longer me. That is just a shell. They also said that my soul has gone to where all such spirits would go. But this is not as simple as what the nuns had made it out to be.

I can imagine that my children will not put with such easy answers. To them the living, it is up to them to bear their dead in their memory. What is happening is that they have allowed their power of imagination to mix their physical world into the spirit worlds. However, despite its magical power, there is no way of communicating, between them and us, in the usual manner of using words. The connection is there but there is no way of expressing it to each other. They cannot know what I am thinking and I cannot know what is in their minds. It is now all about relying on our sensations and intuitions. How will this give comfort and help my children and sustain them in the days to come?

Stillness

 

Eleven

Two days later, we went to the hospital mortuary to retrieve our mother’s corpse. The white body wrapping was unwrapped at the face, for us to identify the person. The look of my mother’s pale and frozen face had a certain stillness – a different stillness I had not experienced before.

I remember the quietness of my mother sleeping in her bed at home and also the oblivion when she was in a coma at the hospital bed. But this new stiffness brings up age old questions: Is that all there is? When will it be my turn? How cold is it like to be dead frozen? How hot is it, to be burning in a gas furnace? What come next? Do the dead know and care?

No one can really be sure about many matters of life and death. But the dead do matter. My mother’s death does matter to us in ways that we are only beginning to understand. As we stood around the mortuary watching the undertakers clean and dress the stiff body, she was with us. She is not dead. Her body may already be decaying inside, but she has been transformed to become the strongest memory, in my inner life. Is this what some may call clinging to the dead?

My mother has become a new mental reality – memories making up of all the hauntingly happy, sad, quiet and turbulent times of our family life. Besides, there was also all her personal remnants which we will bring home to lay in wake. The last funeral rights at our home will also be a way for all of our family members and friends to come to meet and get to know the new perception of my mother’s being and not being.

The body trolley

Ten

My mother’s body was pushed out from the CICU, on a body trolley, along the corridors of the hospital, on the way to the mortuary. These were the same passages, 40 days ago, that she was pushed through, on her way to the operating theater, for her fatal surgery. On the first trip, it was day light, but now, the last journey, it was in the dark of night.

Accompanying the trolley, it was difficult holding on to what was real and what was imaginary. What was there to hold on to – was it the body, the soul or what else? Just a while ago, there was my mother’s whole life time and now, it is just the dead body rolling along. How to make sense of our past, present and future? Was it all planned or mindlessness existence? How about thinking of it as continuous change, moving from one reality to another and another forever etc…?

I think that there is no single meaning or truth to our life, on earth or beyond. We live life according to our own understanding or lack of it, which ever may be the case. My mother, in her own way, had a pretty fulfilled life, more or less. Who is to judge?

There was an endless and random series of images and words passing through my mind as I went about making plans for the funeral. My mother’s body will be in the mortuary for a few days. This will give my sister and her husband, just enough time, to fly back from abroad, to take part in the last ceremony. When they arrive, we will then bring the corpse back to our house. The wake will be for two nights.

Passing time

Nine

At 7 pm, my mother was pronounced dead. I asked to pass sometime with my mother’s body, before it had to be removed from the bed, to make way for the next patient. Some of my relatives and my mother’s friends had come to visit my mother that afternoon and they too witnessed the last hours of my mother’s life. Everyone in the room was filled with emotions of their own. What were their thoughts of her death?

It was impossible, at that time, for me to apprehend the suddenness of her passing. I was confronted with relentless questioning (in silence). What is the meaning of life when one has also to die? Does this paradox of life make life meaningless? How am I going to deal with the void that she has left me? What is the meaning of absence in one’s daily life? Who will look out for me now? Who will remember me as I was? Who will know what happens to me now? Where will I be from? Who can I go home to tonight? Et cetera, et cetera.

That night, I held on to my mother’s cold right hand, for as long as I could. Later, the nurses unplugged all the medical attachments on her; cleaned her body and then wrapped her up in white cloth, crisscrossed with white strings. When the job was done, we had a last look at my mother’s pale, wounded and warned out face. She appeared to have had enough of her last existence and cannot bear to suffer it for one more moment and was happy to depart. But, where will she be going to pass time tonight?

Last words and thoughts

Eight

Before I went into the hospital for my heart surgery, I wrote down some of my thoughts and my last wishes. I got my son and daughter to sit down with me, a few days before, and told them what I had written for them. Painfully, and hardly able to hold back my tears, I read it to them in Chinese hakka.

I have been a tailor for 80 years and it had feed me and my children. I do not have many worldly possessions but whatever I have, will go to the both of you. If I die, give me a simple funeral. My coffin should not exceed RM2000; have two nights of Buddhist prayers; then cremate my body, and later, sprinkle my ashes into the Klang River.

With what ever money that remains, after my medical and funeral expenditure, I have a list of several places (temples, orphanages, old folk’s homes and schools) which I would like to continue to give donations to, for the next few years.

I came into this world empty handed and will leave in the same manner. I thank God for giving me two wonderful children and their family and their children. I am happily fulfilled. If it is God’s will that I have to depart, I will go in peace. All along, I have been praying to the Goddess of Mercy, thanking her for her compassion and benevolence. When I pass away, please do not grief; just remember that I have gone to a place nearer to Kuan Yin. Continue to remember me and that would be my consolation.

I wish all my relatives and friends, good health and a fulfilling life. Farewell forever.