Why we go home for a funeral

Living abroad, one of the most heartbreaking experience you can possibly go through is receiving a phone call over the death of a loved one.  I got just that exactly two weeks ago over the death of my grandmother.

My world suddenly spun one minute and stood still the next. I wanted to cry and scream and spill my guts out all at once.  It was a moment of disbelief and of hoping that what I just heard can’t be true.

A feeling of emptiness slowly descended over me like a blanket.  Adding to the sadness was the realization of how far away I was and that there was nothing I could absolutely do that very moment.  I was shattering into pieces inside while everything and everyone around me went on as usual.  I left work and I went home.  I curled up like a fetus in bed and cried my heart out.

The following day I called up a family member who is based in Singapore and asked her if she was flying home.

“Why should I go home?” was her defiant reply.  “I should have visited her when she was alive. It’s too late for that now.” She has always had trouble working out her feelings in difficult situations.

“And there’s no need for you to go too.  The airfare is too expensive and you don’t have a nanny to take care of the kids while you’re away.  The family back home will understand,” she added.

Reason told me to just say a prayer and stay put.  The heavens will be forgiving if I didn’t attend the funeral in person.

But there was no way to ignore that little voice at the back of my head. This was the woman who raised my sister and me when my parent’s marriage fell apart.  She was more than a grandmother to me; she was practically my mother.

And a thought whispered with certainty, I have to go back home. And I did.

In the movie Love Happens, the character Dr. Burke said a funeral is an important ritual of the grieving process.  Because it shouldn’t be about crying over a life that has ended, but celebrating a life that has been lived.

And the family priest echoed this sentiment when he delivered his sermon during the funeral mass.

“Death is the most misunderstood event in a human being’s life,” he said.

“As sad as it may be for the ones who are left behind and that palpable feeling of emptiness is hard to live with for awhile, we have to bear in mind that a life has been lived.  And for that, even through our tears, we have to celebrate.”

And so I went home to take part in this ritual to pay tribute to a remarkable woman who lived until ninety, who taught me how to weather life’s trials at it’s worst and celebrate it with laughter at its best.

She really taught me how to live.