epitaphs and eulogies…
A church elder’s passing on recently got me thinking.
He used to serve with my dad, as a lay worker in the Peranakan Assembly. They would, after office hours and on weekends, visit and pray for the sick, bring the bread and wine for Holy Communion to those who were unable to come to church and visit those who had been absent from church. Over and above ministering and administering the needs of the assembly.
Theirs was a small and warm and caring assembly, where absence is noticed. Very comforting in a world where we are nothing but digits.
I was just writing to a friend that these are extraordinary ordinary lives. They serve others not for any personal gain but out of love for a fellow human being and this becomes their legacy. They didn’t set out with any intent to leave such a legacy but how they lived ensured they will be remembered such.
But death sets me thinking (more than new life actually, is that morbid? I don’t know). Are people, at death, more dear than when they were alive? Do their virtues gleam brighter at death? Would we say the same of the person while he or she is living?
In an East Asian country, there is a trend catching on. People hold their memorial services before they leave this world. This helps to bring them closure, especially for those terminally ill. Eulogies are given to the living dead, literally. And they say their goodbyes and thank yous before they go.
So do we love better only in death? Fulfilling last wishes is not difficult. You know the age-old belief about fulfilling a person’s last wish if you do not want to be “visited” on er… later 
In fact, to the world, it paints a picture of filial piety.
My grandpa left his last wishes with me. Among the “To Do” list was to throw his ashes in the sea. His contention was if love and filial piety are to be expressed or demonstrated, then it’s better upon the living than the dead. “I can’t rise from my ashes,” he said, “to see who’s visiting me.” That’s my grandpa. 
But he has a point. Looking after the aged sick is more difficult than keeping his or her ashes in a niche or at home.
Visiting and providing for another person’s well being instead of only focusing on ours and simply appreciating them is better done while they are alive than dead.
All good things take time and effort. Even if just sitting to spend time with someone. We glean a lot about a person. My grandpa had a wealth of stories, anecdotes that I loved to hear… Of his childhood, walking miles to and from school everyday (did I mention my great grandpa had a car and driver at home? 
) and sqautting by the roadside pumps to drink water when he got tired and thirsty, getting rides from a kind bullock cart man sometimes, until a rich aunt decided to be his patron and took him in to live with her, how he grew up during the pre-war days, going through two world wars and surviving!, his early dalliances with love, how he was matchmade to grandma etc… etc..
They were folks of humble background (they lost everything during the Japanese occupation). They do not leave a legacy in wealth or any written word (although I would have liked to have paid more attention to the whats and hows when I helped my grandma, at six years old, to make her special herbs and ointments for wellness, bloatedness and sprains) but if anyone had cared to spend time with them, the treasure is them.
Don’t get me wrong. I know him warts and all. Heck, we even know of a skeleton in grandpa’s closet. 
He was also a reformed alcoholic and chain smoker (I have proof – the ash from his cigarette burned me above my belly button while he was carrying me as a child (the folds of fats now, might have erased the mark but not the memory of it) It was only later in life that he gave these up after converting to Christianity but he hid nothing about his life. He taught me the good and the bad and how to choose well. He is not on any pedestal but his life touched mine in a very precious way.
So too others who have left this unpredictable world. They are not perfect, but I remember them because in some way, their lives resonated with mine.
I ask myself what epitaph I might want (although there will be nothing to engrave it on as I don’t intend to be buried or my ashes kept in a niche. I want my ashes to be thrown in the sea) ….
I think how we live is how we will be remembered. It will not be a perfect life but hopefully, we won’t have been too busy to stop to say a kind word to someone during a time of need, extend help in kind or time, be there for someone even if sitting in silence to listen, to cry with them … be it to stranger or friend. To have strength of character and the moral courage of our convictions to stand when others sway … to treat human beings with dignity no matter their station…. The acid test? – extending this same charity to loved ones at home as well (that’s the hardest, cos we hurt those we love the most).
I wouldn’t hold a memorial service before I go. These are for the living to cope with the loss. But I would want at least one eulogy from my family. What they say will be the acid test of how well I’ve lived and loved. Or not….
wishing upon a star….
It’s getting close to Christmas.
It seems like only yesterday that I was part of the manic trail of shopping dust for Christmas presents. Driving down Orchard Road to review (no, no not in any official capacity, just one of the cars falling, happily, behind a road hog causing slow moving traffic ) the light-up with my family. Going to someone’s house to hear the kids’ carolling. Enjoying pre-Christmas celebrations. Dusting off my choir robes. Having traditional Christmas family dinner cooked by eldest sis.
The only thing I didn’t do was to put up the Christmas tree. I love Christmas trees, not that it has any religious significance, (Jesus was after all born in a manger and not found below a Christmas tree, gift to mankind notwithstanding). But allergic rhinitis always causes sneezing fits and most times, I will be lying flat on the floor with the kids running a ring around me instead of the tree.
But I love Christmas trees. It just adds to the festivities and lights up any celebration. Even if a quiet night at home, the blinking fairy lights add a sense of magic, warmth and nostalgia. It brings me back to the white Christmas tree and home of my childhood and the bustle to prepare to welcome the carollers, where Green Spot and sandwiches would be the apt finale. (The only time my sisters and I get to drink anything other than warm water ). It also brings back beautiful memories of people whom I love who have left this earth but not my heart. My grandparents, my maternal aunty, my black and white nanny, my adopted grandma and grandpa, my grandaunts (grandpa’s sister and sister-in-law)….
It just seems to cancel out terrible days. Rotten people. Difficult experiences. Bad friendships.
The memories seem stuck at when I was five years old. Being two years apart, my sisters would have been seven and nine respectively. We would have been on good behaviour to make sure we didn’t miss the high point of our very simple lives. Putting up the Christmas tree. A plastic white with green, blue, red ornaments, tinsel and blinking white (as in light yellow) fairy lights. Of course, we were more of a hindrance than a help. Rushing to put up the ornaments, before my mum could finish twining the lights around the tree, but it was a special time.
The trees these days do not necessarily have a star topping the apex but ours always had. I loved that moment best. The piece de resistance. When my mum took a high stool to fix the star to the top of the tree. Sigh….
Words fail me now but I just loved the moment….
Star light, star bright,
The first star I see tonight;
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the wish I wish tonight.
I do wish that… even now. But as I got older, another star that led the shepherds and Magi to the manger, has me making another wish as well.
Not world peace but for peace in our hearts.
Star light… star bright… May you have your wish tonight.
what’s your price?
Everyone has a price. That means everyone can be bought? That’s disturbing.
Is there anything noble to a price tag? Admittedly, we have to make a buck and work for a living. So that’s a price tag on us, right? That helps us put food on the table to feed the family, pay for medical bills, send children to school, pay for little luxuries. Hopefully, it also helps us open up our fists to extend help to others in need as well.
So getting paid for a good, hard day’s work, is good.
On the other side of the fence, the people who put the price tag on us, also make a noble contribution, eh? They tag us to to help us make an honest living. So that’s noble too, right?
When does it stop being noble? I guess this is not new. But it didn’t hit me as much until the last few years. My environment ensured that. Money and job status and security is associated not merely with loyalty but blind loyalty. Absolute blind trust (strange … these are the very same people who say they don’t believe in anything or anyone but themselves and their self-ability), here they are blindly trusting. The more blind you are, the better. And it’s not the blind justice with balanced scales. It’s being blind to bad decisions of the power that be and attendant eunuchs. Blind to unfair treatment of professional (albeit deemed “disloyal” by virtue of the fact that they are not “yes” man) and loyal employees who want the best for the organisation. Blind to breaking people’s rice bowls. Blind to injustice. Blind to everything and everyone, except those who sign your pay cheque.
Everything becomes a pure transaction. A mere contract. Take the pay. Zip up and throw away the key to everything else except what your paymasters say and ask you to say and do. You get your money. You get your status. You get your security.
But the company “owns” you.
The question is at what point do you walk away and say no amount of money is worth the moral dilemma? And when you do get to walk away, will you come back for even more money and higher status? Is it worth it? What’s your price? What will you sell? Who will you sell out? Why will you do it?
I believe we have lines we do not cross. Well, at least for those whose choices are black or white. Right or wrong. Yes or no. I am not certain for those whose line shifts within shades of grey. I guess shifting lines imply there are no absolutes. Everything is relative for them. And for those who have totally crossed the line, they have gone to the dark side. Where wrong becomes their right.
What conditions some to be happily blindsided by money and status? Perhaps those who do not have blood on their hands. They just take orders and pass it on to others to execute. Literally. They just write papers and surprise, surprise, leave others to implement their “projects” within their stipulated, unrealistic expectations and timelines. Perhaps, they believe only in themselves and the present. Therefore, they are amoral with no conscience? It is just what’s good for you for the here and now. So others be damned. For the now at least. Or perhaps, they are just above the law. They work with and for the law or they are the law. Or those who see the system for what it is and milk it for whatever it’s worth.
What’s their price? I’m afraid in that situation, the price will never be right. I’m sure someone’s price could be another’s poison. Is there a limit? I’m just bummed that people I think I know keeps raising the ante on their price, while continuing to criticise others pretty much like them and the organisation that they continue to fleece.
Being blindsided is more common than I thought. Even with people you think you know.
