RIP

In my memory, this was the 4th funeral that I've ever been to.

For some reason, I remember going to a funeral as a kid, maybe at the age of five or six.  I can remember who the funeral was for.  I can remember being there and seeing the people around me.  But I also know that, at that time, I didn't know what was going on.  It had no meaning to me whatsoever.

The second one was very close.  At the time, I was 14.  I was old enough to understand what was happening.  Someone close to me had passed away, but at first I really didn't feel much.  Perhaps I really didn't know him that well.  Perhaps it was a little too overwhelming.  Throughout the process, the whole idea was kind of freaky to me.  It wasn't until the last moment, when the coffin was being wheeled out of the funeral home and out to be taken to the cemetery that I cried.  I don't know why.  I guess, at that moment, it really occurred to me that he was really gone forever and that I would never see him again.

The third one was last year.  I did not know the person.  My attendance was out of respect.  But even though the person was a stranger to me and half the ceremony was in a language I did not understand, I felt the sorrow and, many times, my eyes teared up.

Today, this person I also did not know well.  I've seen him maybe once or twice a year, but there was never much interaction.  This was a man that was very close to my extended family; a man that visited my grandparents every time he went on his business trips to Asia.  Although I did not know him personally, it was difficult to be there.  I could not bear to look at his daughter.  She's a great girl, and I know she's keeping it together because she still needs to take care of her mother.  But at certain times, when I saw her face, I could feel my own eyes tear up.  She is so close to getting married, and he's never going to see it.

This has all been so sudden.  I guess we all knew it would happen sooner or later, but this was much sooner than expected.

RIP.

Life is fragile.  Life is short.  If you don't take your chances, there may never be a second.  There may never be a chance to do the things you wanted to do.  There may never be a chance to say all those things that were left unsaid.  I've learned this lesson so many times, from so many situations, from so many places.  Yet, I have never been able to put it into action.

Someone once apologized to me for "teaching" me the feeling of sorrow.  (Sorrow.  Not sadness.  It's not the same.)  Over the years, I've grown to understand that more and more.  And, perhaps, you never really learn how to feel until you've experienced sorrow.