Mourning Has Broken, Continued

I swear, technology is a blessing and a curse. Here I am sitting in the front yard of Grandma's house, with my older relatives sitting around chatting and laughing (laughing, yes. Everyone's in good spirits), and I'm on the lappietop connected to the Internet via USB broadband-modem, blogging. Heh. Don't worry, I ain't being (too) antisocial; true to typical family-reunion fashion, the conversation among the relatives doesn't really involve yours truly (cynics among you could argue that maybe yours truly could make an attempt to get involved in the conversation, in which case your argument would be truly valid, but anyway)... and there aren't any guests dropping in to pay their respects just yet... so it's the right time, methinks, to get online for a bit and write some updates on what's going on.

Y'know, it's funny. This is the house my cousins and brother and I have grown up visiting every weekend and on special occasions... and now it's bedecked with a large canopy in the front with the words Eternal Bliss painted across it, and a pair of white curtains around the front entrance, with the front room transformed into a parlour with a beautiful white casket in it. The house hasn't been a home for a while now, not since grandpa moved on in 2002, and grandma was sent to the old folks home... but now, somehow, it feels like she's come back home, as have we. Whoo. That was almost poetic. :)

Incidentally this is the first funeral I've attended since I was a kid and my great-grandma passed away (I was in Perth when grandpa left us). Apparently there needs to be someone present in the front of the house throughout the night in the event that people drop in at odd hours; methinks I shall try staying up, maybe tomorrow night, to keep vigil. Should be quite an interesting experience. Meanwhile, it's hot and humid, and everyone's fanning themselves, and there's Chinese dialects being spouted back and forth, and people are munching on little shelled groundnuts, and the air is buzzing with little gnats and tiny ants, and I'm on the internet. The juxtaposition of it all is quite uncanny.

Will be back soon. Bye for now.