Of Life & Death

Phew...what a week. It was work and work till way past midnight for two days. Nothing out of the ordinary apart from paying my respects to two dead persons. One I knew personally and the other a totally mysterious stranger, both of whom were Malaccans but separated by faith and time.

Went for a funeral at 19th Century gothic like St.Francis Xavier Church. Accompanied my Dad, Andrew, to pay our last respects to an old friend of his, Uncle Jack Victor Sta Maria. Poor bloke was said to have been suffering from lung cancer or sort but was quietly unaware of the damage to his lungs. He did have quite a good life though and well into his late 60s.

Though I firmly believe that death is not the end but merely the begining, it is still nevertheless a sad occasion. I did mention this to my Dad more than once that I would be glad and at the same time sad at his passing.

Its something like this....'when you die, the spiritual part of me shall weep tears of joy at your passing as I have faith that you have ran the race of life well despite its many challenges and will be rewarded with eternal life. However, the human half of me will shed tears of sorrow and sadness knowing that I would not be able to hear or feel your touch any longer but left with only memories of the love we shared.'

The other 'dead' I paid my respect to was an almost complete skeletal remains of a man who had been dead for almost 600 years. The skeleton was among four discovered buried near the original mouth of the Malacca River next to the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank. They were found during excavation and archeological work to locate the remains of the former 16th Century Portuguese A Famosa Fort. Quite an interesting find as the burial pattern of the skeletal remains indicated that Malacca had been populated before Islamization in the early 1400s.

Had dropped my Dad off at the church and had sometime to kill before the funeral service at about 10am so I decided to take a short walk to the excavation pit for some photos about 100 meters away. They had found four burial pits there last year in July. Half way there, I stopped to chat with a good friend pf mine who runs the Maritime Archeology Museum. He informed me that one of the skeletons was currently on display above his premises at the Youth Museum & Art Gallery next to the 17th Century Dutch Square. What luck, I thought to myself.

A quick hellos to several of the museum staff and I was on my way up to view the skeleton. It was pretty surreal. There was deafening silence and stillness of the air with only the sound of my footsteps echoing against the walls of the old building as I walked pass the galleries. Here I was all alone by myself on the upper floor of the two-storey building admiring the artwork and paintings on display as I went from room to room looking for the 'dead'.

Finally found the skeleton displayed in special glass casing and was quite impressed at the near perfect remains. It still had a pretty good set of white looking teeth attached to its jaw and skull. As I stood there viewing the bones, I wondered what was life in Malacca back then. There were a 1,001 questions about the skeleton and the person who once inhabited it but I suppose the answers will lie buried with the dead.

I must say that the day was pretty unusual for me as I was surrounded by the dead and the beauty of life at the same time. To the dead, may they rest in peace. To the living, may they continue to enrich life through the beauty of their art.

...Ars Gratia Artis...

To None I Wish Ill But To All I Wish Peace And Love.