Farewell my Centenarian Grandpa

If anyone saw my past post, I would sometimes talk about my Great grandfather. And if you don’t know who he is I’ll tell you about him. He was a World War 2 soldier, he survived the Death March and he lived until 102 years. He died just recently, last Dec 15, 2021, from asthma. He had difficulty with breathing at first, then he died. My grandma and my aunties cried over the phone as they received the message because my grandpa lives in the province.

We went to his province 3 days after receiving the news, and camped at a farm near his house since there was no available hotels or accommodation nearby. The funeral was the next day, at 8 am. Since he has been blessed to live a very long life, we already accepted his fate and we just celebrated his life. Our family had fun seeing our other relatives and ate the donuts we brought as a celebration also for my sister’s birthday. We enjoyed ourselves and I played games with my cousins. It was kinda hard to sleep since it was hot in the tent. And when we got up early we immediately packed everything because we need to travel back to Manila after the funeral.

On December 18 very early morning we went to the funeral. Great grandpa was in his casket and everyone was saying their prayers and their goodbyes. The kids had to circle the casket and leave first, I was confused but the adults said it’s tradition. After the burial we had to go back to his house and wash our hands with boiled guava leaves, because they said that if we don’t wash our hands the spirt of Great grandpa will follow us. We left and said our goodbyes to our relatives and went to our other relatives’ home since they prepared lunch for us. There we had fun too because we were able to relax with nature and go biking and eat good food.

To be honest, I wasn’t very sad about my great grandfather, we weren’t very close, and I only met him a couple of times. But I felt proud of my great grandfather, he protected his country and survived the toughest of times. He took care of his family and lived a long time. Goodbye great grandfather, we will miss you.