104th Street. For You Grandma

My grandma passed away last week.

She was 76.

I was generally distressed over her passing for I loved her dearly. However, in comparison to my Dad’s passing, I felt that I could handle my grandma’s passing better. As they say, the first cut is the deepest. I was glad that my grandma passed away rather peacefully, and that my mum and her siblings (my uncles and aunts) were around when she left this world for a better world.

It is never easy to handle a death of family, the trauma and the painful thought of never seeing that person again. Everyone was telling me that I should not feel too sad for my grandma, for after all, she did live to ripe old age, and that it would in fact be more painful for her to continue living and suffering the pain of her illness. I understand their logic perfectly, and I know that that is the truth, but still, how can I come to terms with the fact that the person is no longer there? That the person no longer exists physically in your immediate surroundings?

It is never an easy thing. As I helped out at my grandma’s wake I pondered often about the very fragility of life; with our very mortality. Our entire life seems to be dictated by moments. One moment someone’s there, the next the person’s gone. There are time moments change everything, and out of a sudden you’re faced with an entirely new situation in which you must come to terms with… Maybe that’s why we need religion, to BELIEVE that there is always more to life. Even so, religion does not always provided answers to everything, at least that’s what I feel.

Still, it is the looking forward to something better that keeps religion alive. As Douglas Adams in his book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” writes, the one thing that makes life pleasant is having something to look forward to. Unless you’re Virginia Woolf who believes that there is no afterlife and that death is the ultimate end, then you either got to make the very, very best out of your life or end up bitter and miserable. Questions remain, and nothing is answered. Probably that’s why we need philosophers.

I love you grandma. And I’ll Miss you so.