The most difficult thing I've done in my life is to press the button to send my father off to cremation.42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgOv9eF7fuj
19 Mar 2022 midnight, I was awakened by an unexpected phone call.
"Dad is not gonna make it." That was my brother's German phone number. I could hear the heaviness in his voice.
"What?" I was shocked by this completely unexpected bad news.
My brother told me that dad's health condition deteriorated drastically, and the staff in the hospital were trying hard to push back his final moments. The other family members on my father's side were rushing to the hospital to see him for the last time.
My father was about to be 65, which is the legal retirement age in Hong Kong. Even with COVID going on, he still goes to work on a daily basis. He also travels around with the family during his leisure time. He seemed to be quite energetic and healthy, how is that possible?
Being on another continent, there is nothing my brother and I could have done. We had no choice but to wait for updates from Hong Kong.
Around an hour later, the bad news arrived.
Dad left quietly on his own - just as he usually does. It happened so fast to me, and the other family members as well.
The family dialed a video call and let us brothers see our father one last time. He lay on a half-lifted-up hospital bed. He looked thinner and older than I remembered, his white hair is also less than the last time we had video calls. The family was crying and moaning, especially mum. She cried her eyes out like never before. Even my brother was filled with sadness and shed his tears, which is something I have never seen for 30 years.
At that moment, it was extremely heavy for my family. The sorrow in the air felt like solidifying, it was so difficult to breathe with it. It felt so foreign to be exposed to emotions with this degree of intensity since I was so accustomed to a calm vibe in Europe. It was just so unreal and I had a hard time believing that was actually happening.
On my father's side of the family, there are 6-7 out of 10 already converted to be Christians. I was asked to lead to say a prayer for my father while I was still trying to comprehend. I did as requested, trying to jog my memory of how I used to lead prayers and formulate one on the fly with a certain level of clumsiness. I prayed to the God we trust, asking him to take my father's soul in, and comfort the family.42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Hx2AmbUQh
Going back to Hong Kong42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ZjRlG6srh
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From that day onward, my family was busy taking care of the administration part for my father.
It was mostly my mum doing the heavy lifts. She is fairly confident with her own capability to get things done, saying that she had already sent off grandma and uncle, it is indeed her responsibility to do this for father as well.
It was the 3rd year of COVID. Most countries already implemented vaccination to different degrees, adapting the co-existing strategy with the virus. Regardless, some southeast Asian countries insisted on the policy of 0 cases, and Hong Kong is one of them, unfortunately. It was unreasonably difficult and pricy for overseas Hong Konger to go back.
Like mum, my brother is also fairly efficient. While I was still overwhelmed by various chores at my new job as a manager, he has already contacted his connections and sorted out the logistics of the return trip. It was extra stressful for me during these days. Just booking the flight tickets and quartine hotel already took me a lot of effort, and I still had to read tons of government documents regarding the COVID policy. I felt like a dying candle put in the fierce wind.
Nevertheless, this trip had to happen.
I don't know if it was God carving the path or father lending a helping hand, but the Hong Kong government announced a relaxation of the COVID policy on 1st April. Originally, the compulsory 14 days quartine period was shortened to 7 days. The flight ticket also dropped from above 1k Euro (around $HK 10k+ ) to around 600. I seized the chance, made the booking, and arranged and communicated the details at work with a grateful heart.
After more than 3 years, I flew back to Hong Kong.
The preparation42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoyiOceuU8h
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It was already more than 24 hours before I finally arrived at the quartine hotel.
There wasn't much entertainment during the 7 days in the quartine hotel, but I received an overwhelming volume of phone calls and messages from people I know and don't know. I have been away for 3 years, and the hectic pace of Hong Kong was definitely challenging to catch up.
Mum explicitly mentioned that she wishes to have pastor Mike, who has been my pastor for almost a decade, be the host of the funeral. Hence, I took up the liaison work and start working with Mike and the church regarding the memorial service and the cremation.
After 7 days of quartine, my brother and I were discharged from the hotel sharply at midnight. I called a Uber for us and went straight home. It was a very mixed feeling to be at the place I spent the first 27 years of my life again, and the humidity and sub-tropical climate of Hong Kong were also hard to forget. My brother has lived in Germany for 8 years. The European climate is rather dry and calm, rather cozy to be in. Hence, It was also a hard adaptation for my brother as well. He had to turn on the air conditioner almost every night and tried to get better quality of sleep.
On the other hand, I still had to take care of work in Europe and the timezone difference didn't help. It was demanding to handle both professional and private matters at the same time. With everything going on, I was fairly drained with my very limited capacity.
There is still one thing to be taken care of 1 week before the memorial service: claiming my father's body from the public morgue.
My mum, brother, and I went to Fu Shan Public Mortuary in the morning and take care of the administrative details with the company of the funeral parlor. It was April, which is early Spring in Hong Kong. The mixture of heat and humidity results in annoying weather most of the time in the season. COVID-19 confirmed cases have peaked for months in Hong Kong, and the deceased numbers were way passed the capacity of the public morgues. The Hong Kong government installed a couple of hundred containers installed with freezers as a temporary solution. The place was also swarmed with families who lost their loved ones, and the morgue staffs were also underwater with this level of workload.
When the staffs were available for our case, it was already 1 hour later.
Looking down from the high ground in the morgue area, there were plenty of high voltage electric power cables and freezing containers lying around in the parking lots. I did not sense even one bit of dignity and respect with this sort of setup. I wondered: what have we Hong Kongers done to deserve this?
It wasn't just my father, the other deceased were also put in this kind of crappy setup. Another thing came to my mind at that moment: every family only has 15 minutes at the cremation place. There is absolutely zero buffering room. It feels more like a streamlined process in a factory instead of a proper ceremony, and I could totally picture nameless urns being processed on the conveyor. No matter how much you contributed to the city, you ain't even worth a fart in the eyes of the Hong Kong government.
It wasn't even the worst. There was a moment when the morgue staff said that they couldn't find my father's body. My family was indeed furious: Did you just say that you lost my father's body? Yet, we almost know that the Hong Kong government bodies are basically useless bureaucrats. It was pointless to scold them there, and it would only waste extra time. So what we did was only hold on to our anger and pushed them to find the body.
Around another hour later, they finally pinpointed my father's location. They picked the body bag out from the freezing container to let us identify the body, so we won't claim the wrong body.
Hong Kong ain't like mainland China or Singapore, the funeral won't happen right after the person passed away. Instead, there will be plenty of procedures taking days if not weeks before COVID-19 time. As expected, the epimeric doesn't help with the lead time at all - It extends the process to months. Long processing time and the sub-tropical climate of Hong Kong are not good news for body preservation - I still remember the molds and the black spots on my father's body.
It wasn't sadness in my mind. It was burning rage.
Since when have our lives as Hong Kongers become so cheap?
The memorial service42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDcVMOjKImq
While planning for the memorial service, pastor Mike asked if my family wish to have the section of a brief history of my father's life and let the family give a speech about their memory with him. After discussing with my mum and my brother, we decided to let me take care of the brief history part and invite whoever in my father's family wishes to share for the section.
Regarding my father's life story, mum hoped that I could emphasize the part of him doing his very best to provide for the family. Meanwhile, my brother said that I should make the decision myself. I didn't say much back then, I only asked mum for the things father has done while he was younger and summarized for the need for the service.
- 1. Born in Macau in 1956, the 2nd eldest son in the family. Relocated to Hong Kong with grandpa as it was difficult to make a living in Macau42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVmgxeVAMnI
- 2. Had excellent academic performance at school, but gave up his study to start working in order to be a breadwinner42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ZUv68YbBx
- 3. Love his siblings, spending a lot of effort to provide for the family42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIucmax9ADc
- 4. Started a manufacturing business with a couple of business partners, but the industry shifted to mainland China during the 80s-90s. He had no choice but to pick another career42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGKsHjWRXQy
- 5. Has been a taxi driver ever since.42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyM2ndN58O0
I kept it this brief in order to spare more time for the other family members to share their memory with my father. Plus, the way I remember him is a bit different from the others. I was exhausted and couldn't afford to explain. Hence, I am falling back to the alternative of remembering him with my pen.42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl7o1UXWII5
The memory of my father42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ph8uf3W8U
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No matter how many details my mum told me about his achievements, that wasn't the father I remembered. The father I have in my memory is the man from my day-to-day life while I was small.
He was a benevolent father to me, and a good role model. Plenty of the small things in his life became important foundations in me.
Every time we run low on fruits at home, he would go to the supermarket and restock after work. He always buys 10-20 oranges, sometimes with a small box of blueberries or strawberries. If it is summer, he would also get a watermelon and Hami melon. He has also developed his own philosophy of picking fruits, and showed me one thing or two while he has time.
My father is very disciplined when it comes to exercising. Hiking, bouldering, Tai Chi, and yoga were his hobbies. I wasn't exactly very passionate about those, but my father has already demonstrated the importance of doing sports. After I relocated to Berlin, he also started with tree climbing and also tea tasting. After a couple of years, he also earned professional certifications in these 2 fields. And he was also very eager to mentor the newcomers and share what he knows with the juniors.
The pursuit of excellence of my father makes me ashamed. Say, I just started picking up chess last Autumn. Now I am only slightly better than beginners with the Elo rating of 800. There is still a long journey to reach an intermediate level (Elo 1k-1.5k), and the international/grandmaster level (around Elo 2.8k - 3k) even further.
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Father successfully conquered the Sharp Peak, which is the hardest peak in Hong Kong.
For days without activities, father always has a book in his hands. The topics were very diverse: How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie, The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, The Ugly Chinaman by Bo Yang, Big River, Big Sea by Lung Ying-Tai, and Dear Andreas also from Lung Ying-Tai. Father has read so many books, and it is basically impossible to list every single book he read. The scene of having my father read in the living room is already deeply marked in my mind.42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡABQvxubfJr
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Father reading a book borrowed from the public library
I strongly felt how important those foundations are since I started working full time. Academic performance indeed plays a role, but a couple of certifications are totally not comparable to those pillars in life. After I converted to Christianity, the memory of my father also became significantly vital for me to get familiar with the concept of God being the heavenly father.42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGYK6MWgPGC
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My baptism on 10 Oct 2010, with the presence of my whole family
Cremation42Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTEXQw8L8v4
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The 65 years of my father's life sounds long. Yet, it actually feels like just a wave tossed in the ocean, a flower quickly fading. It is here today but will be gone tomorrow.
We spent almost 30 years of life together. Suddenly, life fast-forwarded to Wo Hop Shek Public Cemetery. My mum, my brother, and I laid our fingers on that button, about to send my father off forever.
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet, no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.Ecclesiastes 3:1:11
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As said in the Bible, there is a time for everything. While we were not looking, the time we had with father had reached its end.
When the time of the Lord comes, the things we use to have will be taken away. Our first reaction is usually to deny, to be angry for the second step, then to negotiate, followed by depression, and finally ends with acceptance.
I am thinking of another book in the Bible: Job.
In Bible, Job is a righteous rich man. Job was tested by the devil, and his wealth and kids were all taken away. Instead of being all worked up and cursing God for losing everything, he only said:
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Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.Job 1:21
When the Lord gives, I would accept gratefully. When the time comes, the Lord takes - I shall choose to let go with the same level of gratefulness.
I think, this is the grace from my heavenly father.
An old photo I found. It was on a green minibus (Line 54), which we have been taking for over 20 years.
