this long weekend

2008-05-19 at 7:11 p.m.

death is PECULIAR. A lot has happened and i have so much to write but i really don't have time. in points:

over the week we've had a lot of losses. but i love our team sa players so much they are the best. and my A9 cheer team owns the rest of sajc including the councillors.

popo died on friday morning after mum sent me to school. went on with art camp as per normal. had rolley chair 100m dash at midnight and won the backwards race. slept at 4 plus woke up at 7 plus. spent about an hour on the track then moved to the wooden tables outside the art room so i wouldn't be all exposed in the morning to the pple training on the field.

continued work on saturday. i'm so horrible. we were fed really well though. modesto's for dinner the day before, and mcbreakfast this day. danielle and dom visited. left in the evening for singapore casket. in death the most curious thing is how you think about the event of death being so universally thought provoking. all this poetry, art, music, movies, stories, all dedicated to or about death. bill viola comes to mind. that alone is enough to make me feel rather unusual about experiencing it first hand. but no i have yet to actually see someone die before me. but i admit there is something of excitement in the idea of me finally being a participant and observer of a closely related funeral. am i changed because of this?

it was actually pretty disturbing seeing my dead grandma's body lying there in the coffin. and when standing alone, i realised it does take some degree of courage to stand beside it. the more i stared the more i began to feel my insides and my mind swirl. and i had the fearful thought implanted in my mind, of her eyes suddenly opening robotically and me having to dogde her as she burst out of the glass screen.

she looked so different in death. just like all those poems ms k's given us. her body was more shrivelled, her skin looked dried and caked, her lips were with lipstick stetched tight. yet towards her death she looked much the same on her sick bed. and yet again it is clear as day that a body is dead when you see it. it's not really like a person is asleep. if a body is dead it's freaking dead. lifeless, plasma frozen and clotted. thing is, there is her face. and then there is her body. looking at each makes me think and feel different things. and oddly, it is the face that presents more questions. and the body and her small artificial looking cones of breasts peeking out under her shirt, a nice expensive looking chinese patterned shirt, less recognizable as belonging to a body without an owner anymore, that endears me to the fact that i know that person lying beside me, elevated to my hip level. my hip so close to where her heart should be. only separated by a varnished wooden wall. i am both grateful for that protection, and perplexed by the distance it represents. it is not like we are visiting her at the hospital and are able to reach out and touch her swollen arm. we do not stand by a bed but by a box.

the room at the singapore casket that i spent a quarter of a day at kinda felt like a tempoary home as we just stayed with my grandmother. we also have my auntie's coping mechanism of still talking to my popo like she were alive and being jocular. it began with me feeling like i needed to be all serious and respectful about my behaviour. but as the night dragged on it became more casual as friends came and left. and there i had a real life example of "the emperor of ice cream", as in death so much activity and life was generated!!! family friends (of my father) turned up that i haven't seen in ages, giving time to everyone to just sit down, eat, and catch up. i met relations that i never knew i had before - i finally have a nephew haha. and a niece the same age as me. my cousin being their "auntie" status mum. there was uncle william in bright green haha. snapping away as usual. on no occasion would he stow his camera away. i thought about the images being sent out via email, addressed just like how other albums from chinese new year and christmas would be. it's kinda funny. and i have recieved them already. i thanked him for being himself and taking photos for no one else would otherwise. (apart from those and the videos meant for uncle david still in america) and in truth the event would have just passed with little tangible record to remember it by. it's still a little shocking to see a picture of a dead grandma. cause something tells me it's like a taboo or a touchy subject but i'm not sure if everyone thinks that way. maybe it's replaced with more modern attitudes. i took a little time too, to contemplate my past. my young memory of my paternal grandparents. i only immediately remember them as being sickly and quiet. gonggong as being the dirty old man he's always been haha. but truth be told i did know them when they were hell noisy and active as ever. especially or namely popo. her notorious character. their cluttered shophouse unit. the stickers along the wall and that particular one i always tapped when i walked up and down the stairs, pretending i was switching on and off the lights or blasting off on some rocket of some kind. the light off the mess of objects in the dining area against the dark of the night sky. particular pieces of junk i grew to be familiar with from my visits there. the somewhat forbidden zone of the kitchen. the twin toilets. the mahjong table. the lightless balcony. yea, these ARE fond memories. only because they are memories, but because they are of a time, place and state of mind that i cannot return to. i'd really want to revist this somehow but i have no means except to think about God playing these back someday. like a dvd. what we would do with our time i heaven. in any case, being stationed there at the wake actually feels very significant in the whole process of letting someone die after their death.

coincidentally our neighbours were the family and friends of the poor poor poor 13 yr old, tan eu jin, who was allegedly murdered by his mother. the article garnered a front page in straits times that day. when i heard about it from my mum i was like OMG and completely horrified. but after reading the article (in our room right next to his wake...) i considered the absolute possiblity of the newspaper not knowing nor broadcasting the complete story. and i felt sorry for the media inevitably misconstruing events which to the family next door, must definitely be taken in a different way. those who would have known the mother and son personally and who would have possibly understood their situation more clearly. the newspaper reports the mother as a murderer when they aren't even sure of how eu jin died. what they know is nothing more than what a reporter has gathered from snooping around. i felt sorry for the fact that we are all so used to reading and accepting whatever is portrayed by the mass media. in this way and also for a boy who did not deserve to die so young! and in such a way, i felt compelled to pay my respects. but it took quite a long time, till the end of the night actually, before i plucked up the courage to visit him. firstly cause i was afraid of disturbing his relatives. i kept walking past, staring at his picture but not walking in. and secondly cause i didn't know if i could handle seeing such a young body dead. when i finally went with jun jun though it was alright. his family were all sitting around in tight circles and were generally solemn but grateful for people visiting. they played some buddhist chants in the background which just made things feel incredibly sad. and the boys body was dull and a little puffy. he had a pearl in his mouth. it's just sad. he was only 13.

as i could have known forever, i found it difficult, and i am still unable to resolve for myself what has passed. my mind's unable to fix the discrepancy of seeing a lifeless body and knowing the person that body was supposed to be. everything about that person, personality, history, my memory and relationship with that person (however insignificant) would seem the very reason why they'd be people there at the wake, at the burial. yet seeing the body off. i cannot understand it. the body is so little of what a person used to be. yet it is also EVERYTHING of the person that is left to cling on to. and seeing that my father, my auntie, my cousins (the ones who feel the loss the most) are now separated from her by a thick layer (or not that thick a layer) of soil, numerous now rotting flowers, and a wooden box. that is highly unsettling and confusing. on one hand, i am unhappy about her body being left there underground. so far away from everyone else. but in the first place she is gone further from us than anyone can ever obtain. the burial itself was so primitively carried out, with ropes and wooden poles to lower the coffin. and the body. the body is just there. nothing has happened to it. i'm thinking now about the urge to dig it all up just to check that it's there, and to see her again. but if i do i'd be disappointed by the fact that her dead and gone body is no longer her. when i threw my flowers in they made a horrible thud on the coffin cover and i immediately felt apologetic for choosing to throw the huge cabbage flower which was so pretty. just like while they sang amazing grace in the process of burial i felt sorry for not crying. but i can't say i was guilty. for there was a reason only select people could not control themselves, and this i had to tell myself. looking at my father who never shows much emotion, and still didn't, i thought about how difficult it must still be for him for it was his mother. and he was her favourite tony. and i saw this in him looking at his mother's body when he first returned from china and arrived at the wake, when he quickly moved off to follow the body out of the area and into the van, and as he stood watching her coffin being covered with dirt, pale. towards the end when the buldozer came in to complete the job, there was my auntie mimi talking in frowns to my cousin, still watching the grave, and junwen comforting her by being there, but really trying to gain support himself. he's alright, but for that moment he let himself time to mourn. he and his siblings knew popo much better for being children of her daughter. i didn't sing along with the rest of them. it was mainly the pastor and others. i think singing was a luxury reserved for those not as closely related. necessary to support the crowd. and for me, after following one stanza, my job was to stare on and around. i wanted instead to step foreward and bury her myself, with my sweat. rather than watch on as some sun-baked workers shovelled routinely. but, at the end of it all, i still see the necessity of all this for all those on earth to earn some form of closure. there is something in routine and ritual. afterwards during lunch the atmosphere was back to normal. we feasted (yup it was quite a meal), we were back to our own lives, after taking that time off, and this was just as necessary as ever. though i consistently find all this so confusing and unresolvable. i need unattainable time to sort it all out. i wondered what would happen if i dedicated part of my future time to making a documentary on this like the last supper at the singapore biennale. what would happen if i just tasked myself with visiting as many wakes as i could in a given period. dunno la i just felt some sort of necessity to explore this one day and make something out of it for all the unknowns it possesses.

there is the landscape of gravestones. each so decorated each resembling very much what remains alive on earth. a thought came to my mind that i think everyone else will absolutely reject. but if i went on a date (hah if it ever happens la) i'd like to visit a (christian) graveyard. in the morning of course. there is this quiet air of calm and peace and something cherished in every personalised tombstone with their windmills sticking out from their soil. inevitably i've been somewhat thinking about what mine shall look like. and i plan to plan my own funeral.

sunday evening went to ichiban boshi with choo and ame the best. band concert where shafiq was crazy. and slept in till 3 to make up for the two nights' lack of sleep.

being at home is VERY bad. i find it impossible to motivate myself to work. i feel so sick and sick of being indoors, being quiet, not having people to watch and amuse myself with their behaviour. i need to set up office outside to force myself into working hours, then return to rest when i deserve it. i need to find study buddies. or just set out alone to siglap macs or sth... goodness.

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