quietness of the cemetery

it's become a routine for me to visit to the columbarium every few weeks to pay respects to my parents. once a while, i'd also drive through the cemetery next to it to get a moment of peace. for some reasons, cemeteries give me a sense of quiet and calms me. this weekend, i decided i'd just park my car at the columbarium and take a walk into the cemeteries instead. the sun wasn't too harsh and i also wanted to do some exercise. it was a good and interesting walk, going through the different blocks of burial sites that was filled through the different decades past. 

as i walked, the folds of the hills and rows and rows of graves appeared neatly in front of me. such a scene is not common locally and felt somewhat surreal. i walked pass the site where my paternal grandmother used to be buried before we exhumed her some time back. i recognised the huge angsana tree beside the grave that still stand today. i also visited the graves of my maternal grandmother and my uncle and i reflected on their lives as i looked at their photos. it is easy to recognise my grandma as my mum bore an exact semblance to her. she didn't like my mum when she was alive as my mum couldn't give her monthly allowances. also, coming from a traditional peranakan (straits-borned chinese) family, there was a natural tendency to favour boys to girls. as for my uncle, i reflected on the stories shared by my mum about him. he committed suicide by hanging himself at the age of 29 on 2 nov 1965, a year before i was born. and he took his life, to my understanding, due to heaps of debt as a result of gambling, and my granddad's disapproval of his intense relationship with a malay-muslim woman. cross-cultural and cross-religion relationships was considered taboo back in those days.

when i looked at their photographs and reflected on their life's stories, i also wondered if i should arrange for them to be exhumed and for their ashes to be kept at the columbarium. traditionally such exhumation is done by the families of male descendants but all my uncles had died and i don't think my cousins would do so for my grandma. and for my uncle, he was single and has no direct descendants to undertake the exhumation. i knew that doing so would be a huge disturbance to their rest but it is something that has to be done given the government's ongoing program to exhume old graves to make way for new burials. unclaimed graves would be exhumed and the remains kept for 3 years before they are scattered at sea. it would not be nice to allow this to be done especially when we are still around. i decided then to write an email to the agency responsible for exhumation to check what the procedures are, especially when i do not have their death certificates. let's see what they come back with. 

all said and done, i have always enjoyed my visits to the columbarium and the cemetery. i really like the peace and quiet of the place (although it do not do justice to the many untold stories of people resting here). it is a good getaway from the busy and complex world of the living. it relaxes me.