Death and Celebration

All Hari Raya celebration's over, as far as I'm concerned.

This year, the 1st of Syawal on Sunday was no biggie.

Last Saturday (19th Sept), on the last day of Ramadhan, PakLang Usup passed away.

Another victim of cancer on Mak's side of the family.

PakLang's the forth amongst their siblings of fifteen (Mak was the fifth child), I lost one of the coolest, and perhaps the most kind-hearted uncle.

For many years as students, my brothers and I stayed at PakLang's house in Damansara Utama. He never asked for rent from us, and quite a few of my UM buddies got free lodging as well.

I went to see him at the hospital earlier last week, but he was already unconscious in the ICU. I knew things weren't good when I saw many machines connected to him.

Went to his funeral. I cried.

Then I drove to Rantau with Pian.

We still had to clean Mak's grave. The next day was, after all, Hari Raya.

The second shock of the day was when we found Mak's grave wide open. The soil in the centre of her cement tomb was almost a foot deeper than the supposed surface. Gone were the bougainvillea bush on top of her grave.

Quickly Adik was called to buy some soil. Pian and me gathered rocks and filled the space up. When Adik reached us, there were enough soil to work on. It was almost six pm by the time we were done. Adik also bought some nice pebbles which we lay on top of the new soil. Using permanent markers, I traced the worn-down jawi letters on Mak's headstone

That afternoon was really meaningful to me. It was good because all three of us brothers worked together on restoring Mak's grave, right before Raya, one day after her birthday.

What better birthday gift could we have given her, don't you think?

So Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, maaf zahir dan batin.