Tai Po Eight Goddesses 

I stayed up all night last night to "keep vigil" for grandma.  In reality I just couldn't sleep.  I thought I would go crazy if I sat in my room any longer so I took the first bus out of Disco Bay to the Airport, then took the Tai Po Bus from the Airport.

The ride was amazing.  I was surprised to find myself intrigued.  I've paddled under the Tsing-Ma Bridge many times but that was the first time I actually used the bridge.  It was still dark out and everything was still so quiet.

I tried to fall asleep on the bus; the rocking of the bus and the train helps me sleep sometimes... but not today.  The scenery was interesting enough; but I had other things on my mind.

From Tai Po Market, I took a bus to Tai Mei Tuk.  There, I laid down on a stone bench just in front of the sea; and stared into the 9-goddesses mountain bathing under the rising sun, across from this small, calm stretch of water.  

The goddesses ... it's silly, but I wondered if Chinese believe dead women with good confucian values become faeries or goddesses the way good Catholics become saints.  I didn't spend a lot of time watching grandma yesterday.  Her body was covered; but her face was so bony and waxy, I could hardly recognize her.  She used to be such a strong, plump, vivacious woman; but now, she is just this pink, waxy, decorated figure.

But that waxy figure isn't death.  I think that's what bothers me.  I still don't know what her death means to me; I still can't put my finger on it.  

I lost my uncle a few years ago, and only now do I start to really appreciate what I have lost.   His death wasn't what laid in his coffin either.  His death was the undoing of our family unity.  Aunt is no longer the subservient housewife, she lashes out in angry outbursts.  My cousins no longer feel the need to be respectful to elders, they become cold and aggressive and harsh to the woman who loved and nurtured them since their birth.   Where there used to be respects and maybe love and joy, now it's just filled with so much resentments.   Where there used to be kinship and friendship and love, now it's just a bottomless abyss.

At uncle's funeral, I tried really hard to cry to be polite; but I just couldn't generate the tears.  Somehow, there on the stone bench of Tai Mei Tuk, I called out "popo," [grandmother] and my voice broke, and I cried violently like a lost and desperate baby.

I still don't think I understand what her death means to me, but what I failed to do in the funeral home, I managed in a cradle made of stones and sea and mountains.  I said my farewell, I shed my honest tears, and I found out in the end, I did love her after all.