blood ties.

at depot heights
on the day that grandma was due to be cremated,we walked in a big group on the road with only our socks on.
yikai saw my dad and his brothers walking behind the funeral van and placing their hands on it, got curious and asked, " why is gong gong (my dad) pushing the car?"

no one wanted to answer him because they didnt know what to say.
i held his hand gentlely and said, "because we want to walk with great grandma for the last time".

he widened his eyes, dropped his usually loud voice to a whisper and said," but great grandma is dead".

i looked at him, tried to control the emotions that were stirring within me, and said, "that is why we want to accompany her for the last time".

at the crematorium
i was walking around and holding back my tears but when the coffin went behind the doors and into the fire, i couldnt hold them back any longer.

ive always thought that i dont tear easily, but i came to realise that i was wrong about myself when my grandma was cremated on 11 feb 2010.
其实一直以来我的哭点很低.
因为小时候 mother 很凶, 爱打人, 所以叛逆的我ba3自己训练de2很坚强, 不让自己哭.
(pardon the hanyupinyin, i couldnt find those words that i want on translator)


a few hours later, all that was left from the fire was her bones and ashes.
one by one, we picked up the bones (from the container) and placed it into the the urn with our own hands.
some had colours, some were golden.
the chinese believe that if you were a kind person who did good deeds, you will leave behind colourful bones after being cremated.
golden coloured ones simply meant that the tonics that you consumed worked its way into your system and your bones.


at the temple 6 days later
yikai was unusally obedient and even stuck his body to the floor to kow-tow to my grandma.
we were all amused by how sensible he grew to be.

scrapped my plans to hunt down cheap bargains at the home club flea and choose to tag along with my brother and became yikai's nanny for the day instead.
we went shopping at ikea, played with many many things and attended to his ten thousand whys.

babysitting a kid is no joke, even at my young and able age of 21.
but i'd still choose to entertain the little king and spend quality time with my brother and his family anytime.
there are some things money just cant buy.
blood ties is one of them.