Oceanbluesandsummerbreeze

This afternoon, I went to the Christian Columbarium, off Old Chua Chu Kang Road to attend Danil's wake. He's put in the "Hallelujah" room at The Garden Of Remembrance.

When I reached there at about 3pm, I saw, pasted on the door, a piece of paper with Danil's name, his date of birth, the date he died, and the time he died, which was 8.43am. The bottom half of the page stated the date and time of the services and his funeral. Already tearing, I didn't want to go in yet, so I stayed outside the room for a while. When I felt ready, I opened the door.

To my surprise, the room was locked. I thought like us Chinese, there'll be people around 24hrs/day until the funeral. I called Zufar, Danil's dad, and he said that he had just reached home from the wake as his family needed him. He asked me to ask the people in the office to open the door for me, which the man-in-charge did. I guess it was my fault for not telling Zufar what time I would be there.

When I entered the room, I saw a white, glossy coffin with Danil's picture next to it. Feeling really emotional, I went up to the coffin and looked inside. The Danil lying there looked different from the Danil in the picture and the Danil that I know, but I could still recognise him, especially his cute nose. My tears were flowing non-stop by now. I just stood there and stared at him. For a moment, I hoped that he would open his eyes and smile at me, and tell me that he was just playing a nasty prank on all of us.

When I sort of calmed down a little, I started to talk to Danil. Before I could go beyond 2 sentences, I was all choked up and I couldn't continue. I want to tell him that he had been a very good student and I'm really proud to be his teacher and he'll always be in my heart.

I stayed with him a while more, and before leaving, I left a little note for him in the blue book at the entrance of the room:-

I left the place with a heavy heart. I'll have to brace myself for his final service tomorrow.