Called mum again because she's starting a fever again since yesterday. Don’t know what had caused it. She sounds not that bad, or she try to sounds better for me. Told her how my cat behave badly yesterday, made her laugh. I like that.
The information they got from the doctor still unclear and now we still left in a puzzle whether her liver cancer is primary or secondary. She going back next Monday for her appointment, hope my sister can bring back more in-depth information on that issue. She also told me that since they found another nodule in her lung, plus the one in her back, thus, most likely the cancerous in her liver is secondary. While, either way, we have to face it.
I also talked about cemetery place for my parent. It is a sensitive subject, i think before talking to my dad, better discuss it with my sister first. In China, cremation is the only way for everyone, there is no other choice. But the problem is where we put the ashes afterwards. The city become so crowded they even don’t have enough space for the live ones let alone the dead. Since the rich starting to buying land for their own memorial, cemetery land become more expensive and less available to the ordinary. There are joke about it saying poor people cannot afford to die now days. Maybe I should persuade my parent doing the ashes in the sea… Not sure they will accept that, they are quite
conservative on this. Actually Chinese government try to promote this method too.
In Tibetan Buddhism tradition, they feed the dead to the predatory bird in the high mountain. It also called sky burial. They do not believe the needs to preserve the body, to them, the dead body is only an empty vessel, why not make good use of. Some say this is rather practical, I do agree. But most striking point of this sky burial is we have to let go all our obsessions towards our body. When we die, we are all nothing but piece of flesh. Take off all the fancy cloth, makeup, hairdo, whether you are top lawyer, CEO or a vagabond, drug addict on the street, to the birds, all these human elements are meaningless, only food to them, nothing more and nothing less. You are who you are and only treasured by you or your love ones when you alive. Funeral is never for the dead, it’s always for the one still alive. This is why the death is so powerful, it tear off all you have, bring you down from highest possible and devalue the most expensive. all materials are meaningless at this point. Power, status, wealth, sorrow, desire are also pointless. Only love, unconditioned love can left behind.
The old lady in my street buried her husband and plant a tree too. I love that idea. One live end and another live begin. As a Buddhist, I believe death is not an end, end of suffering, but not end of life.
