holy darkness
I lost a loved one on Monday. I’ve lost my own grandparents at a very young age and so this very special someone has become a grandfather to me over the years. He left this world early on Monday morning, … and my first reaction to the news was of shock as I did not expect it to come so soon.
This is actually the first time I went to a wake of somebody I knew personally, who watched me grow, and who really appreciated me for who I am. I was just doing a photo montage of his life and I was thinking to myself that I’m watching a person’s entire life unfold before my eyes. Imagine having your entire life condensed into a photo montage. Many of the photos were taken long before I was born, our human attempts to freeze one very special moment in our lives, a birth, a birthday celebration, functions, barbeques, or simply random snippets of life. Many of them, especially the black and white ones, have a timeless and sentimental quality to them. They reminded me of an era long gone, frozen deep in the past.
As we looked at them together, someone would ‘say hey dats kong kong’s wedding anniversary...’ and all the memories would some flooding back, as though they’ve been fished out of a very deep pool. … and random comments will start coming out. Personal anecdotes, funny moments, quirks, idiosyncrasies… its truly surreal to be reminded that a loved one was once very much alive and living life to the full. Its heart-wrenching… a moment when you fight to hold back tears.
Losing someone can be truly painful. But it is in losing that one actually, gains, receives and learns to love even more deeply.
I have tried you in fires of affliction;
I have taught your soul to grieve.
In the barren soil of your loneliness,
there I will plant my seed.
alvin ong dozed and watched the sawdust trampled night @ 6:21 PM
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