'Without money, we'll all be rich.'

Naise. Oh, and its 36 more days to the end of As, hmm......

'Bye bye bye bye bye....' the boy chirped as the coffin was slowly carried into the premises for incineration. Holding him on one hand, his mother struggled to put up a strong front in front of her son, but she could not hold back. Her tears fell, as the child just watched helplessly, not knowing what was going on.

The room was overflowing with human despair. Cries, moans, screams mashed together to form a wave of audible sorrow. The stronger ones prayed as the coffin advanced toward the incinerator, but most were too weak to do so.

The cousins who grew up with her weeped the most. Their childhood revolved pretty much around her, when the grandma was still able to walk, cook, and do everything else any other middle aged woman could do. They say she home-made the best oyster sauce around with her own unique bland of traditional ingredients, and others also mentioned how pretty she was in their eulogies, saying how she was still being wooed when she was singlehandedly raising 7 children after my grandfather passed away at the age of 8. The 52 years spent living her life as a widow must have been hard, especially in those post war days.

The daughters and sons stood at the front, wailing in deep agony. The father seemed to have reverted back to his childhood days as he called out to his mother, ' Bye ah ma, bye ah ma....' 'Lei fan lei la ah ma, lei fan lei ahhhhh' cried the youngest daughter as she observed the last few minutes of her mother's body.The eldest son held on to his mother's portrait, hands trembling, as he too could not hold back his tears and called out for his mother, hoping for a reply.

Most of the kids did not know what was going on. The 3 sons of my cousin were afraid. They did not know whether to tear or to laugh, they did not understand the meaning of death. The eldest one seemed to have developed a sense of understanding to death as he tried to console his mother, who was on her knees. The other 2 although not aware of the situation, exhibited the typical human emotion.Fear. They were at a loss at what to do, as adults who had once guided them in their every actions were now sobbing, the pillars in which they could always rely on seemed to have collasped.

Amongst all the bitterness, the grandson stood there, rigid. It seemed as though he was devoid of emotions, it was almost too inhumane for the grandson to not even shed a single tear. He watched as the coffin moved. The grandmother who once always ruffled his hair on his ocassional visits, the grandmother who always sat by him to watch television during the visits, she definitely deserved more from this grandson.

But from the perspective of the grandson, he thought no, that was not the end. Death never was the end. It was an oppurtunity to discover and find out what every other person can never achieve on this earth. They have the chance to see whether god exists.Whether there is something up there that has guided us through all the human miseries and perhaps deliberately creating new ones for us to tackle, so that we could all achieve that idealistic perfect human life. Death was and always has been a part and parcel of life to him, that was the way he was brought up. Sorrow can only move him this much, but no matter how deep the knife cuts, it would take a meteor to plunge right into his heart to enable him to feel.

'No more?Noooo more?No more chu chu train?No more.....' the boy exclaimed, sounding disappointed. It seemed as if time passed too fast for him to enjoy watching the train reach its stop.

To others, it was probably one of the slowest, most desolate moments of their lives, and it will be etched deeply in their soft human minds.

Though rather offensive to some, sometimes things happen that leads me to think that 'whoever who controls,guards our lives' (up for your own intepretation) us is truly a merciful saviour or an .......

Ever since my grandma fell ill, on and off during the morning prayer sessions i would pray for her to be in good health or at least to be able to attend my cousin's wedding, which is today 10/10/10. Being a free thinker, of course i didn't pray to any particular god, i prayed to whoever was up there, and hoped that that person would have enough kindess to grant me my little wish. Of course, my cries werent heard and unfortunately, my grandma had to move on on the 9th, early in the morning.

My relatives were there in the morning when the doctors called them up to say that my grandma was in critical condition. The doctors said she was doing fine the day before, and even at the very moment before she went away, she even bid my relatives goodbye.

They say she left peacefully.

It was slow,

seemingly painless,

as if it was just another scenario where any other old woman was falling asleep.

My dad told me her clothes for the wedding were already all neatly ironed , hanging in that closet all ready to be worn.He told me how insistent she was on attending my cousin's wedding.Childish as it may seem, it just wasnt fair to her. She didnt exactly had a 'decent' childhood to start off with, and the way she left was as if she was 'kena jacked'.

It just wasnt fair.

Arthur once told me that i had this knack for writing those dark and gloomy essays, duno i just felt that it was always easier for me to gather up all that doom and gloom within me and pen it down on the paper and i remembered there was this love story that was so dark that i couldnt even belive i wrote that, cos the protaganist of the essay( which is sadly me cos i was doing a personal recount) experience a damn suay and bitter lost in his life.

So i was like having this discussion with my mum in the afternoon, and i was complaining to her that she has brought me up in a totally wrong manner to think that birthdays were totally totall irrelevant in our lives ( be it in the modern society or not ). I felt that this had always led me to ignore the fact that birthdays to my friends were very happy ocassions, but this also reminded me that she has inevitably culled away what could have added on to my small pool of sources of happiness.

I dont know whether its just me, but i wish to think that i see things in a totally different light from people, which many a times makes me a weird person. In the recent death of our ministor mentor's wife, though i dont really know her, from the articles i read, she must be a real imba person, considering the fact that she was like the only female in the back then sexist-society-singapore's RI. Anyway as everyone paid respects to mrs lee, i thought to myself, how will her husband be doing now. Being of old age, how would it feel to lose a life long companion, especially when youre under suffering from rather severe medical conditions? What would it be like to walk around that big empty house alone(ignoring the maids and stuff ok), to know that youre forver alone, literally.

As much as i would like to continue on my rather random train of thoughts, math has called. Lets see whether the dates between my posts follow some AP or GP series thingy, would be rather cool erh?