Mortality

so i went to the funeral of a friend's father. i was pretty sure what or rather why i was there. i didn't know his father personally or even in a passing manner. i never heard of him talk about his father so i had no idea what kind of a person he was. so for a while there was a little identity crisis.

why was i going to the wake of a man i did not know?

i figured the answer pretty quickly. i was going to be there to support a good friend of mine who has experienced a loss.

so it was pretty different from the other funerals i have been to. the one where i felt down because my friend who had so much potential had to go so soon or the ones i could feel my parents' loss even though i was not close to the deceased.

it was also the first time i went to a wake where people talked about the deceased's life and the relationships the people around them had. so going there with the expectation of being a friend for support as opposed to being a mourner is a little different.

i learnt a few things that day.

1) most of the 20 year olds i know havent been to more than 1 funeral or less even though they have lost someone, usually a grandparent.

2) when people talk about things and events and emotions, it is only natural that you will put yourself in that situation. in a funeral, people talk about loss and you immediately think about losing the ones closest to you. when people talk about the fun times they had with the guy, you laugh with them even though you haven't the slightest clue of anything they just said. when they talk about how fortunate the family is to have him, you think of your own family, whether or not you've been with them recently.

and yet, all throughout this time, i could only feel guilty for thinking about myself when this is a funeral about somebody else.

the last weekend was pretty fucked up because 2 people lost family members at roughly the same time, albeit under vastly different circumstances.

many of the people who spoke had great stories of the deceased. i wondered what story i would tell if my own father had passed on. when my grandmother passed, i didn't really know much about her. on the car ride my father told me a few stories, of a man who insulted his ability to do anything decent with his life, and of another who gave him a chance.

someday im going to sit down with them and ask them the story of how they came to be who they are.

had a pretty good conversation with a cab driver when i went to camp last week. he had this great voice like a old wise man, and he looked like the sensei from the old karate kid movies.

celebrated yangs birthday this weekend.