Taking St. Paul 1 Corinthians 8:9 to my Ching Ming

It is so hard to wake the kids up early in the morning. Hubby has gone out to buy the chicken and duck before the break of dawn. I had wanted to ask him to get me a bunch of roses or orchids as I couldn’t do it myself last night as it rained heavily. But knowing that he is taking the motorbike to the market, I decided I do not want him to come back with a few twigs and leaves without the flowers.

So, my sons and I went up to my parents-in-law’s grave, empty handed. Ah well, the old lady probably couldn’t care less about a bunch of flowers anyway. I am sure she is already utterly proud of the four grandsons and boasting about it with her friends ‘up there’.

Something made me ponder. How come I am talking about ‘ah mah from up there’ while so many people are praying for the earth god to let them out from ‘down there’? So, it bugs me and I decided to have nothing to do with the whole thing. I took my DSLR, tripod and video camera along. I will be there alright because it is good to remind the kids of their grandma. Only my older two sons had seen this grandma before, but not grandpa.

Well, the kids had a fun time burning up all the spare joss-sticks and stick them around the parameters of the grave to smoke the mosquitoes away. When I was complaining about mosquitoes, they will bring a few and planted them near my feet. “Maderrrrr…….I pray you…”, so said my #2 son and his humor that only I find funny. “Eh, I am not a smoker, ok? I want non-smoking section, please.” My four sis-in-laws, two bros-in-law and the wife are probably pooh-poohing with all their salivas.

It was total chaos at the graveyard because everyone is there to do their annual Ching Ming as today is the actual day. RELA members were throwing their weights around and refused to let hubby drive up eventhough we told the RELA guy that hubby’s sister is too old and too weak to trudge up the hill. Fark RELA. We tried to negotiate to drop her and drive down to park the car but no deal. RELA very great one. Wait lah, I got them on video. Let me get a few more clips of them acting lansi-lanyong and they will be on Youtube soon.

And that pretty much sums up Ching Ming this year. I decided to have a St. Paul first letter to the Corinthians 8:9 style. But of course, my children and I had a little, short prayer, unknown to the rest. “Heavenly Father, have mercy on our grandma and grandpa and may they find peace in Your Heavenly Kingdom. Amen.”

Now, I am sooooo glad the dreaded ‘meet the fockers’ session is over. Sigh….in-laws always made me feel so stressed.