Sending Grandma to the Heavens

My Grandma had a long battle dealing with her burnt skin & stroke which made her wheelchair-bound for as long as I can remember. She was trying to save her own house from a fire in Singapore, that lead to her condition. It is typical of her, the bold and irrational woman of the household, she was the alpha female. Someone told me it might be retribution for the things she had done, for she was one of the Cultural Revolution leaders in China back in the days of Chairman Mao Zedong’s communist party rule. Apparently, she was a tyrant and ill-treated my Grandpa before my time. Regardless of all the things that had happened in her days in China her children were relentless with their love & in taking care of her throughout these decades. She had her last breath in the company of her children while in the hospital and our most decent and honest way of religious rites was to send her on her way to the Heavens, she suffered no more.

On that day, I remembered that it started bright and sunny when we followed the hearse to the funeral parlor where she was cremated & her soul left towards the shafts of lights coming from the ceiling & almost on cue, it started pouring rain as we left for home, tears streaming down our faces as if the Heavens understood & took pity too.