The 17th

My grandfather (Mother's side) is staying over for a couple of days. Nothing special about that but just now while in the living room, he picked up a framed picture of his children that he's never noticed before. He laughed heartily and proclaimed 'How small you all were back then!' Almost immediately his joy is replaced by the saddest of looks I've ever seen.

I then realized that he must've been reminded of my deceased aunt who died of cancer 2 years ago. My memory of my grandfather at the funeral flashed in my mind. He arrived late because he lives all the way in Kedah, and when he saw my aunt's body he called out her name as he sank to his knees sobbing uncontrollably. I had been trying to hold back my tears but witnessing his distraught I gave in and wept shamelessly, inconsolably. I cried even harder at the burial. Something I wish I hadn't done. My cousins were all silent, yet there I was, flooded in tears. I feel like it wasn't really my place to have grieved quite so openly.

You know, I wasn't really crying because I missed my aunt. Not that I didn't, just, not so much. I couldn't stop crying because I was thinking of what my cousins were feeling. The sight of my eldest cousin digging his own mother's grave was just too much. Fact that he looked brave and didn't cry at all is just, heart breaking. Kneeling with my cousins by the grave in the cold, cold rain while their eldest brother kept shovelling the dirt is just. I don't know how to put it into words. As if drowning perhaps, or as if being whipped into the sky by a tornado and slammed back into the ground. Your mind just don't work and the tears won't stop flowing.

Now, whenever I spend time with my youngest cousin (which is all the time since we're practically neighbours), I always wonder what it feels like to be her. She never cries and speaks of her mother rarely. Though when she does, she speaks of her fondly. As if she's still around. Her mom's hospital bed is still in her bedroom. Clean and white, but without the antiseptic smell of medicine. Sometimes, while laying there, watching tv with my cousin, I'd think of her and wonder if she's doing the same.

Anyway, I hope grandpa doesn't feel too sad too long. Death, can't be greeted. Not with ease it can't. Can it?