hush puppy

So yesterday, I attended the memorial service, or the final rites of passage, if you like, of my recently deceased grandfather. The atmosphere, expectedly, was decidedly sombre, as hushed voices and tear-streaked countenances paid their last respects to the departed soul.

It's funny how death unites families. Mingling with familiar faces were those of long lost relatives - distant uncles and aunts thought to have been swept away by the hands of time to distant, irredeemable pockets of indifference returned, and presumably, disappeared once again to their own lives, so much separated from ours.

Not before a few gems, by way of conversation(for lack of a better word), from patronising, (but i must mention, not unkindly) aunts who exclaimed, in great surprise, ' How could your features change this much ?', and without the merest hint of a snicker, 'MIT next stop, eh ?' , eliciting little more than mumbles in response.

For one so much given to verbosity in private, I'm sadly tongue-tied in any public gathering. After the perfunctory 'hello's and 'fine , thank you's, I slip easily into my now perfected role of quiet-world-watcher, slinking around on the metaphorial tip-toe, unnoticed, and possibly forgotten. And before you know it, it's time to go.

Maybe that's exactly the way some people lead their entire lives. Gone before they know it's time, after spending innumerable years unnoticed, and forgotten.

What a shame.