The weekend that was..

How do I start this thought?

The weekend just went by in a flash. A weekend that usually means a lot to a lot of people but has somehow not made any impact on me all the years of my life...A time when the living would go to pray at the graves and the urns of their loved ones who have since passed on. A time when my mom would without fail perform her duties as a filial daughter/daughter-in-law/wife and make all the necessary arrangements to appease the souls of her parents, in-laws and her husband with their favorite foods and prayers, year after year after year. I used to tell her that she better not expect me to do those things when she passes on unless she "really gets up" to eat and she would put on that dreaded look on her face, in anticipation of hungry days, months, and years awaiting her on the other side. Well, I told her as an after-thought to make her feel better, perhaps she can expect my older brother and his wife to "feed" her if necessary, which would make her face cringe all the more.

It was a weekend also that for a long long time since my Dad passed on that I had thought about him. It's been like, what...7 years, not that long really, but I cannot remember if it was in September or October when I got a call from my brother to say that Dad had "disappeared" which kind of had me stunned for a minute before I realised that he meant that Dad had passed on. He had gone rather quietly, extremely quietly in fact. He had gone to sleep and never woke up. Just like that. And for someone who had appeared just as quiet throughout the years of my life as my Dad, it did not seem to hurt that bad at that moment with the news. Hmm..was I missing something? Was I supposed to make a heartfelt disconnection to a connection that I never really felt? Was I simply put, supposed to be sad?

But strangely, I did feel a tinge of sadness this past weekend. I suddenly remembered a stoic, simple yet dignified gentleman who plodded on in his life as best he could to bring in the dough, to feed the family and to just go about doing everything in life in his own quiet way. We never talked much, he and I. Just once, he took me when I was about 7 or 8 years old, to see a chinese sword-fighting movie at the Federal cinema. And he bought me some snacks to go with it too. Yeah, that was the only time we bonded, father and son. There was another time when he spanked me for short-circuiting the electricity connection to the house for trying to reconnect a worn-out radio. The only time in my life he hit me, even though there were many many times when I shoved my test report card to him in his slumber and which were almost always filled with red numbers...screaming.."quick, sign, sign, school bus honking outside already.." And even when there were the occasional blue number inscribed, he never uttered a sound and would just sign my card, although I thought I did catch a glimpse of pride as I walked away, having felt equally proud of myself that I did not have to get his signature while he was probably having his nicest dreams. Otherwise, my memory of him is just this strange man with darkly tanned arms attached to a skinny pale body who could make a pin drop startle more than his presence. Then I went abroad, grew up too fast and along the way we grew apart and then I came back a quiet man.

Yeah, it was that kind of weekend, a time that momentarily snapped me out of my routine and brought a memory or two to my eyes. I could have "made" the weekend longer and remembered more things past but that would have made me more conscious of my absence from all those activities. Maybe next year...