Neighbours

Neighbours are the people who live next to us whether we live in condos, apartments, duplexes, houses or bungalows. If you are lucky, your neighbours will be the nicest of people who will eventually be your friends (cum security officers when you are on vacation or away on business) who will help you and share confidences and their food with you.

But if you are not so lucky, you will have neighbours who make the Addams Family look darn normal! If you live in an apartment like me, it can be hell. I have these neighbours in the upstairs apartment who seem to live like zombies! They will be cooking, bathing, washing their clothes, moving furniture, renovating and just about every annoying thing you can think of, they'd be doing it..........at 1 am everyday except when they have gone back to their hometowns or wherever they sprung from.

These so called neighbours are also very lackadaisal about their children running around in the apartment block vandalising just about everything in sight and littering. You can see the candy wrappers strewn all over the hillock at the back and in the parking lots too! There was even a time when soiled baby diapers were seen floating down their windows to fall splat on one of the cars parked beneath their windows! The children love to ring doorbells and run off! Complaints to the parents fall on deaf ears for the kids are still doing it and now they have even taken to scratching the paintwork off all the new cars in the parking lots. So far 8 cars have had their bodies scratched and my car was not spared either!

Then there is the couple downstairs whose only interest in life is to fight each other tooth and nail in the wee hours of the night. The husband will be shouting and the wife will be cutting, slashing herself with knives and pieces of broken glass they will be hitting each other and hurting one another. There will be a lot of things thrown around and there were even times when the police had to be involved.

There is also a guy who comes back drunk every night and starts to kick the doors and gates of the apartments he passes to get to his own and threatens anyone who dares to confront him with bodily harm. Again the police had to be called in to take the man away.

All these happenings in the apartment block are usually ignored by the other tenants as no one wants any problems or involvement. Is this then the famous APATHY practised by us Malaysians? Or are we so busy chasing our own dreams to even remember to say hello or just smile at our neighbours? I have lived here for 4 years and I only know the guys next door and the neighbour next to them and the couple downstairs. Where then, are the friendly, caring and compassionate Malaysians that raises to help in the tsunamis, earthquakes and other tragedies that don't involve them? Do they exist only for the publicity they can garner?

So what kind of neighbour are you? The nosy one? The friendly one? The 'kiasu and kiasees'?

Diana-Saint or Egg Head???

Today I watched on telly the docu-drama Tribute to Diana. It was something to ponder on. Some questions raced through my mind, not to mention the absolute feeling of disgust at the paparazzi's constant pursuit of her with a tragic end.

Diana and I are the same age. I watched her fairy tale wedding take place, the birth of her 2 sons, the way Charles totally destroyed a sweet and beautifully innocent young lady and turning her into a bulimic and insecured woman. Whether her relationship with Dodi would have culminated in marriage is still pure speculation. There is no denying the love she had for Dodi but would Diana have given up everything including her sons for Dodi? Knowing the Royal Family the way she did, I am sure that she would have taken into consideration the fact that she would have to embrace Islam to marry Dodi and that would have been ammunition enough for Charles to stop her from even seeing her sons.

The Princess is dead now for 8 years and still her memory lives on. Her work with the land mines issue, the AIDs awareness and other wonderful things she did during her lifetime has been overshadowed by the 'romance' with Dodi, the scathing remarks issued by her ex husband and others who are just plain stupid. The 'dirty linen' written by her ex-employees are an insult to her memory. Let her rest in peace and stop all the negative reports about her for the sakes of Princes William and Harry.

Diana, rest in peace.

Ashes to ashes Part II

To continue with the last post, I called a certain place in Selangor to ask about niche prices in their columbarium. A few years back, a friend's mother's funeral was held there and I had taken a brochure and price list from them. I was told by one of the sales person that the lower level niches were totally sold out and only upper level niches costing RM1600.00 onwards were available. Try as I might to find out just exactly how much it would cost to buy the next affordable niche, I was told to go there and have a look.

I have always thought that once death comes round, burials/cremations and everything else would be easy peasy! Wrong! There are so many rituals and most rituals cost $$$$$! Buying a coffin/casket depends on the kind of material the said item is made from. Then there is the wake and all the other mojo attached to the ceremony itself! A chinese funeral depending on which dialect you belong to would wary from ceremony to ceremony, costing from at least RM10,000 omwards!

So with trepidation I told my better half just what the sales person had said and told him to go and have a 'look and see' as suggested. I also told him that he was not to make any major decisions without consulting me and the main criteria I set on him is that he has to buy 2 niches side by side so that when Patricia's ashes are placed in her niche, she'd know that when I too an no longer on this earth, my ashes would be placed next to hers. Morbid? Nope. Just something I think I should do before I too go off into the great blue yonder. Never know when the Grim Reaper comes knocking!

Peace and love to all!

Ashes to ashes

Recently my husband and I had a discussion about our daughter Patricia who died on 1 March 2001 aged 4 months. Her ashes since her cremation on 2 March 2001 has been placed at home with us and wherever we go, the ashes go. Well it's coming to her 5th birthday soon this 26 October and her father suddenly drops this bombshell on me about placing Patricia's ashes in a columbarium. It seems that he has been planning to do this for quite a while and well, I am just not taking this too well.

I know that at some point in time I will have to do it. Even Father Andrew Volle whom I respect and love like my own father has advised me to do it at some point or other. I just find it so hard to think of Patricia being away from me. It is so final, a closure of sorts. Am I ready for this closure? Will I ever be ready? Patricia is the flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. My first born and only child of my womb.

Placing her urn in the niche at the columbarium seems like an act of abandonment to me, a betrayal of trust. I never had the chance to care for patty like I am caring now for Angeline, so it is like a double whammy of guilt trips and what nots! I dunno maybe I am not ready maybe I will never be ready. I just know that sometimes in the dead of night when I toss and turn in bed unable to sleep, I think of my beautiful Pitty Pat as I call her and tears flow unceasingly. Even now my eyes are swimming in tears. I just cannot think of Patty all alone in that cold lonely niche with strangers all around her.

Maybe someday when I see her again, she can tell me why God took her back from me and why she is who she is today........Angel Patricia, my baby, my girl, my one love.