RIP Pappa Ajoba

For all of you who don't know what "Ajoba" means, it means "grandfather" in my language. My mother's father, whom I called "Pappa Ajoba" died last year from cancer.

When I went to India this summer, I went to a memorial ceremony for my Pappa Ajoba. It was exactly one year (Hindu year, not the 365-day one) since he died. In my culture, we believe that it takes a spirit one year of cleansing to be reborn as another person. We were having a ceremony to acknowledge that Pappa Ajoba's spirit has finally moved on.

When we got the call saying that he had died, I couldn't cry. My sister cried buckets, but I didn't. And I don't know why. Surely I should have cried, right? I feel guilty for not shedding a single tear. Maybe it's just because it hasn't hit me yet. It didn't sem possible for a person to be alive for one second and then just be a corpse, a shell of their former self the next. But it is possible. I mean, it happens everyday. Every second, right?

I suppose Death isn't that scary though. I know it's morbid, but I'm actually curious about what happens when a person dies. Is the white light real? Do you hear voices from your past? Does your life really pass before your eyes in fast forward? And what about after you take the Big Step? An afterlife? Heaven? Hell? Or just nothingness? Does everything just end there? Go blank? Maybe we humans have just added romance to death. We needed something to...spice it up or we just couldn't care if someone died. At least not as much. I know that sounds cynical, but it's true, right? We always need something interesting attached to everything, or we just don't care. Or maybe we do. Just not enough.