dEaTh is SuCh A bIG wORd

dear jess,

i know that this time is hard for you as it is for me. I understand that in the face of death and grief, it feels that friends have abandoned you and whilst everything in your life has come to a sudden stall, everyone else's still moves on, urging you to jump on the spinning carousel and asking you to smile and get over it quickly.

i know that you've seen the best and the not so great in people at this time too, and that you must remember friends who are gold glow best in the furnace, and gold is but few.

i know, my dear, i know that mama and aunty marie's passing haunts you, your beloved family, cousins, uncle charlie and i know that you question and far from see any reason that they should have died within only 24 days of each other, no apparent sign, sickness or problems.

i know it hurts to look into the burial ground in taiping, made originally for one person but used to bury two, two significant people in our lives. The winds blew and it felt like the heavens were crying, the tent shook over the burial grounds, and as cement was put over the plot, the rain increased, subsided only after we all took shelter.

i know it haunts that you were there at mama's last moments, and that you can still hear the screams of your cousins at your aunty's passing, you can still see the sadness drawn on your uncle's face till today, and for the first time prayed and wished upon a resurrection that could happen today.

but i also know that there wont be mama, my mama anymore the chirpy joyful almost jumping grandmother who would joke, laugh, even climb the neighbours fence with her sarong, in her slightly younger days. Her portugese lessons which contained much 'colourful' languages, her feeding us in huge plates with her hands one after another, her walking to the shops, her buying numbers, her smile, her laughter... Your oldest portuegese heritage, everyime you pass her room you will think of her.

i know that everytime you look at your uncle's face, you will see your aunty, the sorrow so deep written already all over his face. The bubbly person who never once was seen sad, has long been sorrowful.

i know that theres so much more you wish to say, to tell, to shout out from the rooftops, and yet so much more that you wish not to.

within the so much that i know, there a hundred more times of things that i dont.

I know you wish not my sympathy jess, nor understanding, but just for me to be here.

love always,
jess