Of death and life

There is something to be said about stages in life.There was a time when almost all my time was taken up attending weddings,then it was visiting friends with babies,and now its attending funerals.As a policy i never went for funerals as longs as the parents were around,but with the death of the father it looks like it set off a trend.Many a close friend or family seems to be going underground literally.At the cemetery I seem to know more people six feet under than above and the tears I've cried could fill an ocean.Most of them are deaths that have occurred at a time when most people have lived their lives to the full and therefore one is happy for them and we can reflect on a good life.There are others that have gone in the blink of an eye when one was least expecting them to and those are the tragedies.
Recently at the funeral of my uncle,I had the opportunity to revisit the land of my parents and to reconnect with family after twenty years.There is something terribly overwhelming about meeting family after so many years.To begin with one have never imagined that ones family is so large,and all under one roof.Secondly it brings back fond memories of happy childhood days of play and happiness and one wonders why we never kept in touch.There was this cousin who spent her holidays with us and with whom i had a great friendship.My holidays were spent in their house and i still remember giggling in church in orthodox kerala because we had to kiss the priest hand and he unfortunately was a young man who couldn't handle the attention we gave him just to see him rattle while my aunt who was a stalwart of the church,glared at us which surely meant that punishment was around the corner.
To reconnect i decided to visit all my cousins only to realise that there were the next and the next generation there to greet me.The nephews and nieces looked curiously at this aunt who turned up in jeans and who was striping their garden of all fruit.The younger children wanted to know where i had been all these years and my cousins and i spent a good day catching up on family politics.Suddenly it was good to be back with family and we had all grown into different individuals but the bonds remain the same.Surprisingly one cousin complemented me on my command over the malayalam language which left me shocked,She was known to be stingy with her compliments but i considered that age and experience had mellowed her.
It was time to leave and we have all promised to exchange notes on a regular basis but I sometimes wonder if in all this tragedy there is some hope,some silver lining to it all ....