If you don't feel good today, you may want to skip this posting. It is about death.

One of my friends in the States came back last Christmas to visit his father, living alone, of age late 70's. It was a short trip - less than a week and nothing accomplished. He was not successfully in getting his father to 'move' into an old folks' home. In the 'home,' someone will look after him, in case he falls, in case he is not eating. Knowing someone knows is better to not knowing? He left then. He was back here last month unexpectedly to take care of his father's funeral. Sadly, his father passed away in a hospital.

I went to the funeral. The ceremony was in the back of the district hospital, a small one-room single-storey brick building - as if someone forgot to take it down when some buildings it attached to were razed. A waffle-tin roof was put up next to the building like a car port to a trailer or a small ranch. And yes, it was under the tin roof that his father was laying in an open coffin for final viewing. Emotions were absent from my friend. He might not know what hit him yet, hopefully.

I went to another friend's father's funeral last Wednesday (3/29). No emotion - for all the sons that were there. Am I being sensitive? Am I just simply a person do not know how to handle my emotions? This friend found out his father had terminal cancel about 3 weeks ago. Then I was told the father passed away. Three days after that, we have a meeting with the friend and he was all ok.

Help me here. Some western culture will gather and eat after a death in the family (there was a term for this?). Acceptance versus denial. Whatever it is, where should one tuck his or her emotions of losing someone dear in the family? I don't know. I would be sad for awhile, acceptance or not. I have a story to tell for how my father passed away, or rahter how did I find out he was gone some 4 to 5 year later (yes, I don't remember exactly). Sad and I don't know if I know I have get that out of my system.