My Longkang

From Untitled Album

Uncle Aun’s fav song : Love without end.

Character: Male, mid sixties, father of four, no grandchildren yet. Recovering from cancer and a mild stroke.

Ah Aun: Thank you so much for picking me up. I had a good flight. Have you prepared everything? Good. How much? No, I must pay because it is qing ming. I must pay this every year as long as I live.

You didn’t go back for qing ming? That is no good. Someone must be there to clean the graves and pay their respects to the ancestors.

These days the young people. The sixties and above know that the past is gone and the future is limited. They understand. The forties and above start to experience medical problems. They can see a glimpse into the future. The young ones are often the ones who drive cars and run a lot of errands for the family. The hope of an entire generation.

They think they are invincible. They are so selfish. It is their education which makes them forget their roots. Where would they be without us? There are so few of us left. Only two sisters and three brothers. Who is going to pay respects to our ancestors after we are gone? My own children are all over the world. It was a mistake letting them go overseas to study. But here in Malaysia, they were severely handicapped by the limitations they faced. They had to migrate for the sake of my grandchildren.

This could also be the last time I set foot in Sibu. It is getting harder and harder for me to travel. I have come to say goodbye to everybody. I informed everybody I was back. Few called me back or invited me to their homes or came to visit me.

The young people they are so selfish. They are so busy with their own lives they have forgotten their roots. I am an old man. I have heard all kinds of arguments about the spiritual life. My time is not too far off. I have no fear. Sooner or later we got to let go what is precious in our lives. Death is just the final letting go. I rejoice my children will live when I am gone but I worry for my wife. Who will take care of her? Who can take care of her as well as I?.

I just worry about who is going to clean the graves of my mother and father, my grandparents, uncles and aunties after I am gone. Will they be remembered? They were so much alive during their time. Now sadly, everything and everybody is forgotten.

I have prepared everything. I want to be buried with my brothers and sisters here in Sibu and not in my country of residence. My children too have already migrated to other countries. There is nothing there left for our family. My wife and I only live there because it is too stressful to move from our family home.

When the time is come, I will be cremated and my ashes sent home to Sibu. Do visit me occasionally Bengbeng. Let us leave now. If we leave too late, it will be very crowded, no place to park and I cannot walk very far.

Update:

I have been disconnected by Celcom at least ten times since this morning. I shudder to think what others in Sibu who don’t live in town like me must be experiencing this morning. Another thing I have started this morning is the use of tags to help with the search engines. I got this idea thanks to Kee Man.

Anyway to reply to a friend who asked me about the latest ‘thingy’ on my blog, it is sarawak-bloggers.org Sarawak Bloggers (SWKBLOGS) is an initiative to unite and gather serious bloggers from Sarawak under one partnership. It was started on January 2010, and has taken a small group of bloggers from a variety of backgrounds as partners under its umbrella.

Tags: after life, ancestor worship, Chinese culture, old age, qing ming, retirement, Sibu

This entry was posted on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 12:28 pm and is filed under interesting characters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.