To Ipoh, For The Worst Of Reasons

My aunt Jaswant (we called her Masi Gudi, masi - aunty, Gudi - a cute name every has) passed away some weeks ago. The news came as a minor shock because she wasn't old, only 47 but she in recent months has developed high blood pressure and associated complications. She was in a coma some time in May but got out of it in a few days and went back to work. She was a teacher, a dedicated one at that.

We had been wanting to go back to my mum's hometown for a while now. Things just somehow didn't fall into place. I had even bought bus tickets once. My mum didn't want to go because her grandson was ill that week. Now on a Saturday afternoon after returning from NTUC, we received this news. This was the worst reason to go back.

The dumb thing was that the direct flights to Ipoh would start on the Sunday. The next best thing was to take a flight into KLIA and then a bus to Ipoh. We did just that. Leaving home about 7pm, we reached my grandparents' home at 2am. The cremation was way over by then. So we were there, too late and sorry. My eldest aunt made me Milo - we hadn't eaten since the afternoon.

The next day, I met Gurmeet (yes, another version of my name), my deceased aunt's husband. Behind that brave face was a soul falling apart. His eyes were sunken and red from not sleeping. My aunt and Gurmeet had been married for 5 years and now he was alone again.

The thing about death is that people can't help but recall everything about the deceased. Everything. What they did on a daily basis, what they wore, what they would say, things they did recently and many years ago, things they used. Gurmeet couldn't help it as each turn he made reminded him of his wife. He kept narrating what happened and everything else my aunt did. From the way she told him not to drive fast, pointing out the place they would eat each afternoon after classes, what she listened to each morning on the way to work, to they way she would cook and clean. It was painful for him to talk about but he couldn't really stop. Misery makes you do that sometimes. Other people do the opposite and clam up. I clam up, mostly.

Consoling someone is hard. When I got the chance, I told him it was going to take a long time to get over this. It took him a long time to find someone who understood him. He even said when they met for the first time, it was like they knew each other already. My words were rough and raspy, and I couldn't look him in the eye. Well mostly because we were sitting side by side in a car. Well.

His phone would ring every 10 minutes and he had to retell the story and remind himself of his situation. Perhaps it was numbing him too. I told him to turn it off.

I went to Ipoh as manpower too. I helped move things and get stuff. There were many people to feed in that house. I helped with the cooking and the occupying of my young, unsure cousins.

On my 2nd night, my mum and I followed Gurmeet to his hometown to meet his parents. Interestingly, my youngest aunt's soon-to-be in-laws were there paying their respects. It was a noisy affair with a lot of conversation going on with tea in glasses in a kampung house in Bidor, an hour outside Ipoh. My grasp of Punjabi is limited to listening and understanding and so I kept nodding and looking interested. But I was too interested. Old folks have many things to tell and stories to share. Gurmeet's father came up to me and told me to get married quickly. In many more words that that one sentence.

That night I didn't sleep well in surroundings unfamiliar, weather warm and mosquitoes buzzing and swirling around my bloodfull ears. Sounds like the army.

The next morning we woke at 430am and got ready to head back to Ipoh for the end-of-cremation ceremony. Not easy to get through this one. My aunt's father-in-law, spritely man in his 80s, wept. Loudly and agonisingly. He had not lost a daughter-in-law. He lost a child, one who brought joy to his son.

Sikhs are cremated and the ashes are placed in flowing water - so that one's spirit can be released to all corners of the Earth. The Sikh crematorium in Ipoh is next to the Big Sikh temple (seriously, that's what it transliterates directly from in Punjabi) and is next to a river. Gurmeet got into the water to say goodbye for the last time.

On Monday, my mum and I went back to Singapore the same way we got in. The direct flight was bloody sold out again. We took Jetstar from KLIA. Damn these cheaper flights set off late at night. I slept at 2am. Full circle.

Dealing with loss is tough, always. Don't laugh but I can still remember feeling some measure of pain when my friend in primary 4 broke my ruler. In two pieces it lay, and I didn't know what to do or say. Neither did my friend. I close my eyes and I can still see the situation, frozen in time, in childhood memory. It's probably hardest for my aunts after Gurmeet. Sisters are always close. It's hormonal and biological. Thicker than blood.

I remember Masi Gudi for repeating something I said when I was nine, "deliciously delicious". She would tease me but at the same was impressed that I could string the same words together, adverb and adjective. She taught English. My aunt was quite a fun, feisty character. That got her far, not letting obstacles stand in her way. She travelled a fair bit, last to Egypt in December. These are things I will remember.