shanshu

at the beginning of the month, two of my aunts (and one aunt's husband) flew over from Sydney and Hong Kong to visit for a good number of weeks. my grandparents deliberately delayed their 60th anniversary dinner to include them. that sunday night, a few excommunicated family members also attended, so it was nice to see them again even though it was a bit tense.

a day after the party, my grandmother began to feel increasingly fatigued and listless. on thursday (June 7) morning, it had gotten to the point that we had to cart her over to the hospital where she would need to stay overnight for observation. i had a day off from volunteering, so i stayed home with my grandfather to field phone calls and so on. i visited her later that evening; she was sleeping. at around 2 am, my mom woke me up briefly to let me know that they were heading back out to the hospital because they had received word that my grandmother's breathing had dipped to less than 50%.

the next morning, i came down for breakfast with the visiting aunts and uncle before driving myself to St. Florence. after school, i checked in with my dad to see if i needed to pick up sherm; i had to wait around STC for an hour or so because he finished later. so i killed some time at Best Buy after taking a round of the mall. when sherm called to let me know he was at Kennedy Station, i tried to go back outside to cross the street to the mall parking lots. my way was barred by what seemed to be a tropical storm, with rain blowing all the way into the store past two sets of doors. i waited until the storm let up a bit before loping off to Wal-Mart to pick up my brother.

in the car, sherman talks a lot. in the course of his one-sided conversation, he mentioned something about our grandmother passing away. it appears i had gone the entire day without anyone telling me that she had died in her sleep that morning. i had surmised as much at breakfast, but nobody actually confirmed it until then.

the weekend was a bit of a blur on account of all the hustle and bustle of relatives going in and out, making arrangements, having vegetarian meals (as per Buddhist instruction) and playing two double-headers of softball.

on monday, i was back at school.

tuesday was the Buddhist death ceremony. it was boring and seemed to have nothing to do with my grandmother. but she was Buddhist, so there we were.

wednesday was the funeral. thank you to the friends who showed up at such an inconvenient hour, and to those that wanted to be there for us and for those that prayed for us. i think you all made a favourable impression on my grandfather (he thought jacqueline was 15).

with her gone now, my grandfather has made some changes around the house. first thing was the removal of all Lunar New Year's decorations (because they were still up and they're all festive red). another surprising change was the dismantling and disposal of the altar to the ancestors that used to reside over the big freezer.

anyways, that explains the hiatus in posting.