17.4.13

Sail away on teary seas

At least the pain ends.

It was a fine night, I was working on my project and my aunt was working on her thesis. My mum was out as usual, and my sister was in her room upstairs. It was a fine night, we did everything we normally did when suddenly my aunt got a text saying my grandfather was dying. Not so long after, another news came, he was gone already.

My aunt cried hysterically. I texted my dad, brother and sister. I called mum, told her the news and asked her to go home. Things happened so fast yet it was as if time passed by too slowly. Mum came home crying, her friend took her home. My aunt then met her and they cried together. I couldn't cry, but it was really painful to hear and see them sobbing.

We waited for dad to come home, packed our bags and ready to go to the main teary house. It was pass midnight when we arrived, everyone was there already. All my aunts, my uncles, even the relatives I barely know. That night when we arrived, I could hear them crying again, this time was much more painful than before. My little cousins were still awake too, a very unusual thing to see children staying awake at around 3 in the morning. I went to the main bedroom, to see my grandfather for the last time. Mum and my aunt went first. I waited outside, not able to handle the weird feeling I felt. And when it was my turn to come in, I saw him smiling peacefully with his eyes closed, with no pain he'd been feeling these past few years.

The next morning we were ready to burry his body. With the Islamic tradition we're still holding on to, after bathing the dead, we prayed for him together before going to the funeral. This was when it happened. I never saw too many people cried at the same time, in fact it was my first funeral ceremony I've attended with emotional attachment. Also first time I saw my dad and my brother cried. And what broke my heart the most was seeing my mum cried so loudly and hysterically. It was scary, I couldn't help thinking if it was my own parents' turn, or even my turn. It was too scary, too painful, too heartbreaking, too much to handle at the same time when I had to calm mum down. My brother and I hugged her, dad wiped away her tears, my little sister cried. What was happening, it was too fast I couldn't believe it. Seems like it was yesterday when we gathered in his house for Eid after Ramadhan. Seems like it was just yesterday when we gathered for my aunt's wedding ceremony. Yet it's literally yesterday that we gathered for his funeral ceremony.

He was a good man, a good leader, a good father and a good grandfather. May he rest in peace, saved and set in the best place that he deserves. Goodbye.

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