Days ago, I slipped out from the office during working hours and made a trip to the funeral parlour to pay my last respect to a 98-years old man, his name was Lau Fu, who died the previous night in Sri Prichard Home, Kinarut. The charity body which I am in is helping to pay the funeral expenses for his body to be cremated.
More than three years ago, a kind-hearted businessman discovered this old man living alone in a dilapidated small hut near a drain in front of a shop in Lido township. Our charity organization then helped him to apply for admission to the old folk home. He was eventually accepted to the home and I still remember days before Chinese New Year in 2006, we paid a visit to the home to deliver some food items and distributed `Ang Pows’ to the elderly people residing in the home. He was very happy to see our presence and immediately started a conversation with the group of us surrounding him, reminiscing vividly stories of his younger days. I just kept nodding and smiling while he talked even though I did not quite understand his words for he spoke only Cantonese, his speech blurred with heavy Hongkongese accent. But I just wanted to let him know that he got the attention he desired. He came from Hong Kong during his youth and settled down in Sabah, working menial jobs to earn a living until old age rendering him jobless, depending then on hand-outs from the public to sustain his life. I heard that during his younger days he had wasted his savings on gambling, alcohol as well as women however remained single throughout his life. Even though you might think that he deserved this consequence but one would feel too sympathetic with his present condition to want to remember his past misdeeds.
There was a somber mood and gloomy air hanging over the funeral parlour when I entered a small room where his body was being laid. His mouth slightly agape. I thought his complexion was much darker than when he was alive, may be the workers at the parlour did not bother to apply make-up on him. I just stood beside his coffin to offer a prayer, verses from a Heart Sutra, wishing that he would soon find peace, wherever it may be. Compared to the bigger funeral room next door where there were a huge crowd of people of family and friends saying good-bye to their departed one, with hanging lanterns properly lit up and an enlarged photo of the deceased sitting nicely on a table, couple with ceremonial banners bearing eulogy messages and words of praise for the departed and elaborate display of wreaths of all colours forming a long line in the room, this tiny room in contrast, which was a temporary resting place for this old man, was devoid of any decorations befitting the funeral ceremony for the dead, no portrait nor banner with words of eulogy, but only small plateful of food items on display on a small table with few joss sticks sticking out from the incense pot…..
It’s a heart-rending scene, in his late life as in death, loneliness seemed to frequent this elderly man much more often than other men of his age, now I wish that the presence of the few of us from the organization would somehow comfort his departed soul, that he was not left to feel lonely, to think that he had been accorded a proper good-bye for his departure to the next life.
My heartfelt good-bye to you elderly `Lau Fu’. You had lived a ripe old age at 98, but I think this was not the way you had intended your life to be. And if you’d think you had passed through this life alone, let’s me pray that in your next life, you’ll be a better person, you’ll find the love of your life and surrounded by people close to you. Most of all, you’ll discard those old habits of gambling, alcohol and womanizing but instead focusing your attention on your spiritual life, spreading the message of love and peace to the people around you, and when you have come to the end of your journey, you are satisfied to think that you have not wasted a single moment of your life, but lived a fulfilled and meaningful existence compared to your past life. So you bid this earth good-bye, not again in this pathetic state, but with pride and glory you depart this world to enter into another cycle of a more noble rebirth perhaps…
Your death indeed serves as a mirror upon which I must contemplate and reflect the rest of my life’s journey on.. ..
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