“You can cry all you want and bang your head on the wall. But when I am dead, I wouldn’t know if you are grieving. While I am alive, you should enjoy every moment with me and be there for me when you are needed.” ~My late maternal grandmother to Maw long ago.
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Don’t expect recognition and praise or blame others for your hurt feelings. For example, Uncle Ver expected a warm welcome from Minerva, who totally ignored him. Instead of thanking her for taking care of his late Uncle Julian with her own money, he verbally attacked her. He wanted people from a poor island nation to come up to him and shower him with undeserving platitude as if he is wealthy.
Even Malouse participated in a loud conversation during my paternal grandmother’s one year anniversary prayer of death. She and her siblings didn’t financially support Minerva while the old man was alive. Instead they were hoping to sell the house in the Philippines and then repay her with the profit. Minerva didn’t want their ill-gotten money. They got mad at her refusal, too.
Maw said that those who cry a lot when someone passes on is the most guilty. Once the deceased has passed on there is no way to apologize for mistakes for not doing all the good things for the person or saying all the right things to make the person feel alive. If only the siblings of the girl, in another example, would have taken the time to conversed with their deceased brother while still alive, that would have counted more than mourning his ghost.
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