Passing and Living

I woke up this morning with insufficient sleep and read a Gchat message my mother left informing me that my grandaunt had passed away. She was the eldest of my maternal grandmother’s sibilings, the second to pass. The news lingers in my mind and I proceed with the rest of my day, here in faraway Boston.
I’ve always felt like I have no right to be sad of the passing of those I am not close to because there are those who are closer, who are more affected by the loss. But yet I still mourn. I mourn even though she isn’t my grandmother or someone I knew very well. I mourn because she has been a part of my life.
My grandmother’s Peranakan heritage is a part of me I strongly identify with and am proud of. I bear the skin-tone, education and culture of her family and celebrate it. My grandaunt is a part of that heritage, of that large family I always love to see at Chinese New Year and the bond we share. As the eldest, her passing signifies the irrevocable course of time and age that befalls us all. I cannot help but feel this.
I feel also a sense of guilt, not remembering when I saw her last. It must’ve been my last CNY at home in 2008. But I know she is in a better place, in the arms of her Saviour.
Yet it is a strange feeling, walking around campus whilst I reflect on this. We live here like all our classes, homework, extracurriculars, our revelry or that our way of life is the most important, not thinking of just how frail it really is. That while we complain of the cold, the rain and the heat, lives have been lost half a world away in Tsunamis and Typhoons. We claim that we care and want to fix this world, but we hold rave parties to raise money for refugees and debate our own opinions like words can solve everything. But words mean nothing at all and money can only do so much. We question the existence of God when He is the very one doing the saving we all desire to see.
I cannot help but be more determined to live a purposeful and effective life. A life in the right direction and not waste anytime on what doesn’t last. Although I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life yet – I know where that life lies.