Scouty’s Weblog

The day started with a shock today. Firstly had over-slept and as a result, the morning routine ends up being quite a rush. As I was on the way to change, our neighbour’s maid came knocking at our door looking for my mum. It seems she has trouble waking up the old lady in the house, which she calls Ah Ma. So she was telling my mum, she can’t wake up Ah Ma and wanted my mum to go over and checked it out.

At first thought, my mum sensed something amiss, but nevertheless she still went over to check it out. As I was busy getting ready for work, thus I didn’t follow her until I had done my daily routine. So after dressing up, I went over the the neighbour’s place to see if things are ok. That’s where my mum had told me, the old lady had passed away.

At that moment, I just freeze for a moment before asking my mum if the maid had informed the old lady’s daughter. It seems her daughter was informed and on the way here. So I proceed back home to get ready for work, while the maid by now is pretty freaked out and had wanted my mum to stay and accompany here. So my mum told her to wait outside the flat while she go wash up.

I proceed to leave for work but with a feeling of sadness in my heart. Again, having to see another death… This time round it happened so close to me.

The old lady moved over here for I think 2 years odd, the structure of our flat is such that we have this 4 units located together along the same stretch of corridor, with a stair separating us from the other units along the same floor. So among the 4 units, my household is one of those that always have people at home most of the time, so it won’t take long before we got to know the old lady and her maid.

So being the typical friendly people, my mum got along pretty well with the old lady and her maid, that indirectly linked our household up with them. So from then on, I will also greet the old lady whenever I passed by her unit every morning when going to work. Thus knowing that she had passed away today, was indeed a sad news to me. The whole day was spent being moody and thinking of what happened.

Perhaps the only ironic thing that happened was that, deep in my sleep last night, I had this weird dream of seeing a blurry image of an old lady appearing in the midst of my dream. It actually caused me to wake up from my slumber as the whole image appeared pretty abruptly.  When I narrated my experience to my mum , she too had experience something similar too, also an image of a blurry old lady. Thinking back, from a very traditional Chinese point of view, perhaps that was the time the old lady had passed away, and somehow she had ‘came over’ to see us for one last time before moving off. As we were the only household that was in constant contact with her all the while.

Had sent my prayers to her in the morning, praying for the early repose of the old lady… Had spoken to my mum and we will be going over to her wake tomorrow evening. The very last thing we could do, paying our last respect to her and praying for her.

Having to overcome death is never easy… More so when the death occur so near to you. Ah Mm.. May you rest in peace. I will be sending my prayers to you.