By Jagdesh Singh | Opinion |
When my mother finally drew her last breadth, there was a calmness around her. We had expected it, her final days battling cancer were all but lost, she had succumbed weeks before. It was inevitable.
Even so, the preparation for her final rites was still unplanned. You never plan for a funeral of a loved one. But we knew who to call, of course. Such are small town communities. You’d know exactly who can help organize something like a funeral, the prayers, the cremation.
As the crowd started to walk in to offer their condolences, we had to make sure mom was presentable. Such is our custom, that friends and relatives would want to offer their last wishes to the body one last time. A look, a whisper of a prayer, a tear shed while she lay there in the hall.
We had to bathe her, and this was no easy feat. A stiff corpse weighs much more than a living body, we found out very quickly. My wife was the first to volunteer for this responsibility. And Dad knew precisely what to do as he was her caregiver after she had lost her mobility, cancer ravaging her body at a frightening speed. They both got right to it, immediately followed by other volunteers who had come to pay their last respects.
When she was finally dressed, they even applied some light make up. Incredibly, she looked like my mom a year before she undergoing chemotherapy. It was then I realized how much she had changed, aging tremendously fast, depression draining the light from her beautiful face.
The next morning, the crowd grew bigger. It was obvious that there were many lives that mom had touched in that small community of ours. Apart from a couple of phone calls, I can’t remember doing anything else much. From the prayers recited by the Sanggat, preparing the open casket, transporting the coffin to the cremation grounds, and the cremation itself, it all happened as if it was all autopilot. I’m not downplaying the good amount of work to get it all done. No, not in the slightest bit. But because it was such a closed knit community, the roles of volunteers were clear, and everyone knew exactly what to do, on their own, extending a helping to spare those grieving.
I personally know that this would be very different in a large city, where we are acquaintances at best in that larger community. It would be tenfold more challenging, especially if you’re new in the city with very few friends who possibly wouldn’t know what to do during such a traumatic time for your family. This applies to all big cities, and Kuala Lumpur isn’t any exception. I’ve even come across a close family, born and bred in Petaling Jaya, who faced this challenge last year.
To fill in that huge gaping void, the Sikh community residing in the larger Klang valley have been lucky to have a sincere Samaritan and Sewadar to call upon during these grieving times. He personally takes the responsibility of bathing the corpse if and when needed, arranges the crematorium schedule and the necessary prayers. He does this at the drop of his mobile phone’s ringtone, and assists anybody, stranger or not with the same compassion and efficiency. Literally a one man show.
He’s even gone to the lengths to raise funds for the renovation of a particular crematorium. It needed more space, for the comfort of holding larger crowds congregating. Many in the city dwell and reside in high density apartments or flats, and don’t have the luxury of space to hold congregations giving their condolences to grieving families. Crematoriums with large spaces are a necessity in cities like Kuala Lumpur.
I’ve known this man for decades, and have met him at funerals of relatives and friends of mine, but strangers to him. He would be standing in a corner somewhere in the crematorium, arms folded, being attentive to make sure that those grieving are handled compassionately. Sometimes by the pyre, making sure the fire is alive. Sometimes behind the crowd. Always alone.
Many of you reading would already know who this is, and probably would’ve been in my shoes, meeting him at these places, almost knowingly that he would be the one responsible to make sure the dead are prepared one last time.
Jagdesh Singh, a Kuala Lumpur-based executive with a US multinational company, is a father of three girls who are as opinionated as their mother
* This is the opinion of the writer, organisation or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.
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