I am going to warn you. Some may find my post offensive. If you have just lost a loved one, you may not want to read this. If you insist to do so and feel I am being disrespectful, that’s your own fault.
Now, on with my own, personal thoughts. This is strictly my own ramblings.
Today, like many other days I passed by the Buddhist temple where my mom and dad memorial tablet is interred. They are buried elsewhere but my mom never hope or expect or demand that her children will continue to go to the grave site to honour them after she died. A very sensible woman, I say. However, we do go to the grave on the annual Ching Ming festival.
So, when my father died in 1970s, she bought a tiny slot in this Buddhist temple. We place a clump of the earth from the grave in an urn there. However, we never bother going to the temple until after my mom died. When mom was around, she usually ‘invite my father’s soul’ to my eldest brother’s home to offer meals on festivals. After she died, my brother had a hard time locating the lot where my father’s memorial tablet is because we need to put my mom’s tablet there too. (Tablet is a little ‘signboard’ of their name and photo).
After my mom died, my sisters and I grieved over her death as she passed away suddenly when none of us expected it. So, we went back to that temple very often, as a solace. Everytime I went there, either alone or with my children, I imagine my parents living in that temple grounds. The setting of the temple is such. One building is for the gods, i.e. the laughing buddha, kuan yin and other higher gods. Another building is for the souls, i.e. where the humans are, controlled by a very fierce looking god with fangs.
Back then, it is very comforting to know that my parents are ‘staying’ in a nice, peaceful place like that temple. I can imagine them hanging around with the other folks there.
That was 10 years ago. Today, I stopped at the traffic light, right outside the temple and I realised that the temple no longer hold the same kind of attention and meaning like I used to have. Last time, every time I drove past, my heart says a little ‘hi mom, bye mom’.
Today, it is just a place where we left a tiny memory of our parents. None of my brothers want to keep that memorial at their houses. Daughters aren’t allowed to keep memorial of their own parents. Only the parents-in-law. So, I am glad there is a tiny slot there with their photos. I do take my children there once in a while and we acknowledge grandma and all she had done for them.
This is the peace I found in Christ and the promise of resurrection. I do not care if other Christian denominations insist that only those who are baptised and accepted Christ can go to heaven. As far as I am concerned, all good people go to heavens. After all, we have so many instances in the Bible where non-believers who have faith had made Jesus pleased. People like the centurion for example.
13Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” (Matthe 8:13)
And I do not subscribe to my Catholic beliefs that I have to offer up lots and lots of rosaries to ‘release’ people from purgatory. Faith means believing that our parents have been good people. Good people whom did not have a chance to know Christ. Good people who have tried their best to bring up good children. So, they have sealed their life everlasting in heaven. I no longer have the misconception that they are sitting around in a building, mingling with all old folks or those whom had died young due to illness or accidents.
So, yes I thank you, Lord. For the peace in my heart. And may the good Lord have mercy on them and bring them and all the good people who may not have a chance to know You to Your heavenly kingdom.
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