Hakikat Kematian

I was woken up at ~4am this morning by a single phone call. It was my nephew, my cousin's son. He told me his father passed away at 2.20am. He asked for my favour to bring his youngest brother who is now studying in PD back for the funeral. I am in the middle of plant shutdown, and by right could not afford to be away. But after like 5 minutes thought, I agreed.

I jumped out of bed and was ready to put on my shirt and jeans, and then it hit me....baju kurung la!!! I took a quick glance at my collection, all are bright and happy colours..(whats with wearing black to funeral?) At last I settle with a orange floral printed on black background. I went on and picked up my nephew at his place and we depart PD around 5am. For a long distance drive I normally would blast my music to almost max but since my passenger is someone who just lost a father, that would not be very appropriate, wouldn't it? Now, where is that thumb drive with Al-Quran mp3?? So I tuned in to IKIM.fm instead.

We reached Jengka 8 around 8++am. Few of my aunties were there already. Their neighbours were coming in and out of the house. I met my cousin, she was calm, sitting by her late husband's body. After sending my mums regard, I recited Yaasin and after I finished, I basically don't know what else to do. Honestly, I have never been to a funeral where the remain is still there. Most of the neighbours are chatting away, I overheard some of the conversation, but after a while, I don't think I would like to stick around and listened to it further. I guess its part of the Malay culture, they never really considered the deceased's family's feeling, they just talk like it doesn't matter. Banyak topik perbualan yang memburukkan tuan rumah, even if the are not my family I don't think it is appropriate to be talking ill of the anybody at all, let alone during the difficult times like this.

The remains was brought to the graveyard around 10.30am. While they were lowering down the body, I caught a glimpse of arwah's face. Suddenly there is a rush of emotions, I could not contain myself. I started to cry, not because of arwah (I was not so close to him anyway) but because I was reminded about myself, my death, my funeral, my ending in this world. Waktu tu automatic istighfar banyak-banyak...I don't want to be overcome by my own emotion. I was holding my cousin, and she started to loose it. Both her daughter in law tried to calm her down. But it seems to me, the moment anybody said, "Sabar ye mak...kesian kat ayah...." she just got more and more emotional.

I took her away, I asked her to istighfar with me, and Alhamdulillah, she managed to calm down. The istighfar works!! Subhanallah...I keep on reciting istighfar with her, just so she would not loose it anymore and at the same time to calm myself as well. Everything was over in half an hour, and then we got back to the house. I stayed until lunch and left around 2pm.

Today I realized, we are never prepared to face death, be it anybody's or let alone our own. I think, with a straight mind, we pretty much know how to behave when visiting the deceased or the family, but sometimes, emotions just got over us and all we need is a simple reminder.

Something worth to share...Adab Ziarah Orang Meninggal 

From this, I have two topics to explore, which are, why wear black to a funeral? and why do we recite Yaasin to the dead? Give me sometime, I'll try to find out, insyaAllah...