Since then

This post is dedicated to the memory of 4000 Island’s mother.

The day after I wrote that last post, she did die, after all. She was 49 years old, and left behind a husband, eight children, one grandchild and her 73-year-old blind mother. She died from kidney failure.

I was at work on Tuesday afternoon when 4000 Islands called, in tears, asking me to come to the house because she had taken a turn for the worse.

Until Wednesday morning, I had never seen a dead body, much less watched someone die.

The air in the house, when I arrived, had thickened with the smells of illness. The family were around her on the floor where they had been sitting and praying for the past couple of days. Even then, I thought they were being hasty. She was still moving around, and asking for water, and saying their names. I thought, even if she is dying, she could linger for days. I didn’t know whether to stay or go. But the Island wanted me to stay. Maybe he wanted me to see.

So I did. I stayed and sat and cried and slept fitfully and ate and watched her die with everyone else.

Every now and again, the father would smooth her forehead and look down at her. “Come on, it’s time to go,” he’d say, as if to a small child. “We’re waiting for you to go. Don’t worry about us. The children are fine. There’s nothing left for you to worry about. It’s time to go.” Every time he said this, the girls started crying again.

I’m an emotional person at the best of times, and it’s very difficult to be among people who are crying and not join in. So I cried pretty much for 12 hours straight, minus the bits when I was sleeping between the sisters on the floor near the bed.

I wondered many times whether I should stay. Surely they didn’t want me there, sharing in their grief? But it wasn’t just me- all sorts of people came and went that night. I tried to explain to 4000 Islands how different it is in our culture- how death is a private thing, and families don’t want others to see their loved ones in this state. All night she was moaning and vomiting and rolling her eyes in an effort to focus on the voices. In Australia, we keep our faces turned away until we are directly confronted by the death of someone close. We don’t stare death in the face like this, watching it unfold for hours on end.

I think she went into a sort of coma at around 9 o’clock, when we were getting dinner ready. She stopped moving or swallowing. But we still ate and watched Arsenal beat Liverpool on TV, and I kept falling asleep.

I woke up again at around 5am, and she was quieter. She had lifted her arms, and seemed to be trying to grab something in the air or make a sign. Her breathing was shallow, and she wasn’t moaning anymore. Everyone gathered- five of the kids, the father, the blind grandmother, me and seven or eight of the father’s card-playing mates. I looked away, outside at the dawn sky. When I looked back, she had stopped breathing.

“Wednesday,” the men were saying. “It’s Wednesday, 6 o’clock.” Everyone started wailing, and prayed at the foot of the bed.

But within five minutes, they had started to clean her, and changed her clothes. They covered her face and kept crying. They took off her jewellery and cut off her baci strings with a knife, an act that seemed more final than that last breath.

The father went out and returned an hour later followed by the coffin on a truck. The exact same coffin I’ve seen many times- wedding-cake-style and trimmed with gold foil- surprisingly flimsy up close.

I couldn’t help being fascinated by all this. They filled the coffin with sawdust, lined it with plastic, blessed it with flowers, and placed her- skin and bones and silk- inside. The coffin guy then put a drip into her, filled with some kind of embalming fluid- two whole bottles of it. They stuffed the coffin with all her clothes and sealed it up.

They ordered flowers and food- vats of it. Vegetables, rice, noodles, herbs, beer, Pepsi. And then the people started coming, and they’re still there.

It’s all familiar now. No one is crying. The coloured fairy lights are flashing tackily. There’s an enlarged portrait of her propped up under all the incense. There are watermelon seed husks everywhere, because seeds are what people like to eat here when they know they’re in for the long haul. I’ve become an expert at cracking them open cleanly. Women I’ve never seen before are all set up in the backyard outside the kitchen putting together massive pots of never-ending food. There are a dozen rented tables in the yard, and everyone is eating, playing cards or watching movies. There were around 60 people there when I left last night. This morning there were only a few, but they were already trickling in. I ate breakfast there before coming into work. The sisters had stopped crying.

On Saturday, she’ll be cremated at the local temple, with all the usual fireworks. The boys will all have to shave their heads and don the saffron robes, which is worrying me to no end. The Island’s entire identity is inextricably linked with his hair.

The photo I’ve put up was taken on New Year’s Eve, when the brother who lives in Thailand (centre) was home. That’s her in the front. Now, look at that hair on those boys- all gone on Saturday. To me, it doesn’t bear thinking about, but the Island can’t understand my distress. It's a completely normal thing for a Buddhist family to do, and if his hair is important to him, then it's all the more symbolic if he shaves it off.