i am the golden spoon ;)

LO! Just some updates at the mo – I got new glasses! Ling, it’s exactly like your green ones but mine is maroon. 😉 I haven’t had them plastics in years so suddenly I feel all retro and loving it. Haha.. and yeah, to those who remember me in those HUGE plastic specs during those awkward years; relax – my taste in plastic specs have shrunk with time. 😀

Well, Cheng Beng came and gone. And I have my story to tell. A week before Cheng Beng itself, my uncle had the same dream on two consecutive nights. It was of my very eldest cousin whom I (and probably you too, Ling) knew nothing of until last weekend. She died when she was 12 years old of a genetic heart problem which couldn’t be diagnosed then. She was buried in Cheras and then her whole family shifted away to Penang. Then 27 years later, she would appear in my uncle?s dreams, telling him that she was lonely and no one was taking care of her. She left a really strong impression that was nagging my uncle for days, so on Cheng Beng, we all decided to pay her grave a visit. Most of us weren?t even born yet when she passed away so we relied on the faint memories of our parents and phone calls to her parents to describe where the gravestone was. Piece of cake, we thought.

We thought, ?Hey no problem man, there are about 15 of us and if we each took about 2 rows each, we could easily find the gravestone by looking out for her name, right?? (Right till we reached the Cheras cemetery and there was an OCEAN of gravestones) ?It is supposed to be on a hill? (The whole cemetery IS a hill) ?Just look out for a cross? (There were thousands of crosses) ?It is near a cluster of angels? (You should get the idea by now)

I probably have never walked around alone in a cemetery before. It was like in the movies ? cloudy and drizzling, still and quiet while you slowly waded through the thick grass while holding an umbrella, bending down to squint at the faded words on the grey stones. Only things missing must be a thick long dark coat and black birds flying low in the background. It was an extraordinary experience. Sometimes, I would look behind me, half expecting someone to be standing behind me but only to be faced with hundreds small discolored pictures of solemn faces that had lived many years ago. It was so quiet. Not the eerie sort of silence, more of the calming sort. Rustling of leaves on the trees around me, rubbery squeak of my sneakers against the wet grass, occasional cracking of a dry branch on the ground. Not trying to be dramatic, but it was really how it was then.

We couldn?t find her gravestone that weekend. We left the place somewhat satisfied coz we did try? but naturally unfulfilled coz we knew that it just had to be somewhere in this cemetery. A week later, many phone calls later and another attempt in the cemetery, my relatives finally found it. I didn?t follow then but hearing my Dad described the sheer joy in finding the elusive gravestone was a gratifying yet unusual feeling. It is not everyday that you feel that your day was made because of a certain gravestone find. 😉

I am not sure how to end this post, I started off this post, wanting to be entertaining but I think I ended off rather schmaltzy. Oh well. No two ways to typify a blog, I guess. 😉 Nites all, it?s gonna be another long day tomorrow at work…