what drives you?

i was at a wake and was talking to one of the bereaved...  he said his late mom's room (at the house) is just as she left it...  they haven't touched her things (she passed away at the hospital)...

that's actually what i've been hearing from those who've suffered a loved one's loss...  they leave the departed's stuff as is for sometime...

stark contrast to something i encountered for the first time in my life last year...  someone unexpectedly passed away and within the not-even-week-long wake, my mom was already handing me and my sisters pictures taken by the one who died...  no, he did not bequeath them to us...  the deceased's daughter gave my mom the pictures  ->  not just our family's but even others'  ->  for distribution...

i refused to take the pictures...  i said the one who took them is still lying in state...  i don't feel like getting his things...  more so since he died at his house...

(ironically, however, i ended up distributing the pics (and letters and docs) myself...  my mom, who too was grieving, was not able to attend to it...  for three months, the items were just at my parents' house until my mom asked me to bring them to the houses of the intended recipients...  i balked...  the departed's daughter has a maid who passes by those houses when she fetches the granddaughter from school.  why not let her deliver the stuff herself?  why did the daughter have to course them through my mom?  my mom insisted i just be the one to do it as it's been at their house too long...  so there i was, not wanting to touch my own pics taken by the departed, but carrying stuff from the same deceased to be given to other people...)

after the wake, still within the novena for the dead, i saw a multi-page document littering the alley...  i recognized the departed's sister's handwriting so i called the neighbor (daughter of the one who passed away) to ask whether it is theirs...  it is theirs alright  ->  her late dad's...  she said she was sorting his stuff and it must have flown away...

then within three months from the father's death, the daughter already had his house demolished and rebuilt...

i must say i found the behavior unsettling...  but people do have different ways of coping...  there are those who take things slow...  and there are those who purge in haste...  regardless of speed, what matters is what is in the heart...

No comments:

Post a Comment