The actual all souls' day falls on the 4th April 2013 but the tradition allows us one week before and after the actual day for t he families to pray for their dead ancestors to show their filial pity. My parents were dead for more than 18 years and my family still gathers every year to show our respect to our parent. This expression of our inner feeling or suppressed feeling whatsoeer could have help us to release our stress in our daily lives and have a peaceful and calming impact on us.\
My sister, H went to market early in this morning to buy all the ingredients and cook the meals which was the favorite food of our parent as far as we can remember and at 8.30 am, we went to the prayer hall haboring the urns of our parent. There was alot of people there by then and we managed to gather a table to place all the food stuff including arranging the flowers and lighting up all the candles and joss sticks and we took turns to pray to my parent. It was over in 30 minutes and we gathered the food and the paper money and offerings and bring it to a place allocated by the prayer hall for burning. The food wsa re-packed and we took it back for re-possessing and eating afterwards for the day's lunch and dinner.
I have written the same article last year and this time, I took the chance to express my thoughts and feelings about this occasion. This year , my younger sister did not came back to pray as she was busy in KL and this occasion brings back many memories as I stand to pray and wait for the process to complete. The love of my parent and I also took turn to pray to my elder brother who have been dead for more than 10 years and also to my uncle and aunties whose urns are also placed in the same prayer hall. Today, my wife also pray to her dead auntie and her primary school headmistress as their urns were located in the same place.
As I say in my last years article, I do not know whether my dead parent could receive the food and the paper money which we offere them. But, it feels good that this is a process to recognize them as the source of our life and upbringing. Without them, we will not be here and we should be grateful for them for all their love and sacrifice. It is an honourable thing to do even in the eyes of many people , this is a meaningless process. We are the script writer of our live and we should not let others highjack our show.
In this world of advance science and technology , many of the old tradition and process will seem nonsensical but as t he saying goes " as science and technology advances, we could be leaving behind a generation of idiot" who become connected through electronic means and without which they will perished.
Namaste.
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