My Grandmother's Tomb
November 1 is All Saints Day and here in Seychelles with the majority of the population being Catholic, today is an official public holiday. My mum wanted to put flowers in the graves of her parents and her adopted brother so earlier this week I told her that I would accompany her so I could upload some pictures on my blog.
If you search for ‘Seychelles’ in Google, you will only get pictures of beaches, sunsets, and all the typically beautiful natural scenery we have here. But what many don’t get to see are pictures of other things…including the Seychelles Cemetery at Mont Fleuri. We had to walk down in the scorching heat. But it was well worth it despite the deep tan I have now acquired.
Today is a day to think about the people we have lost in our lives. I’m very grateful to God that I have not yet lost anybody who means the world to me, through death. I cannot even begin to imagine a pain like that, and I really don’t want to ever have to go through it. Although I know that as long as I live, it’s something I should expect. Death can take any one of us at any time.
This was actually the first-ever All Saints Day that I have spent at the cemetery (as far as I know). Here in Seychelles, it’s treated as an event; as you can see from the pictures, there were lots of people there. We weren’t even in the main section of the cemetery, we were quite far away. The main section is a lot more organized in a way; you’re able to see all the tombstones lined up nicely on flatter land. We got there at around lunch time, by then most of the tombstones were already decorated with bouquets of flowers.
As I’ve mentioned, we went to the cemetery to clear up and place flowers on the graves of both my Seychellois grandparents and adopted uncle. My grandmother, Winnie Eugenie Ah-Time died of cervical cancer. It was in remission for years and even today, I remember the day they told us that the cancer had spread and that there was nothing else they could do. My grandfather, Desire Maxime Lavigne…he died of ‘old age’ according to my mum. He basically had a wound in his leg that refused to heal. He refused to treat it (hmm…). So they wanted to amputate his leg and he refused. So it could have been a combination of illnesses and the untreated wound. He also had diabetes, and wasn’t eating properly (he didn’t want to eat proper)…he had an attitude problem obviously. They both died in their 70s.
My adopted uncle (Andy Louange) died in his 30s. He was epileptic and constantly experienced episodes of seizures. He had this all the time. His life story is a sad one, his mother was the house help of my grandparents. She was raped and murdered when he was still a toddler so my parents took him in. Interesting enough, it was my grandmother who loved him like a son. My grandfather, who was a racist had a love-hate relationship with Andy. Before Andy died he bunked at our house. My mum made him sleep in the floor…NO, not because he’s black…but because he was epileptic and that’s just the floor is just the safest place to sleep. While he lived with us, I remember freaking out every time he’d have a seizure and I’d call my mum and she’d either try to wake him up or place a spoon in his mouth. She also forced him to take his medications.
In 2008, he decided to work on Praslin and he died after an epileptic episode in which he chocked on his own tongue. Only my elder brother was in the country at the time so he was the only one who attended the funeral and burial. I was already blogging then, so after I’ve uploaded the blog archives you’ll be able to read the post when I mentioned his death.
My mum said that when she dies, she wants us to bury her with her father. Her younger sister ‘Fely’ who died when she was 9 months old, was also buried there. She also said that we should bury her in a white dress, with lipstick, makeup, high-heels and a bottle of red wine. She might have been kidding about the red wine but I might actually do just that. Assuming she goes before I do.
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WYSIWYG! I'm a simple person trying to live the simplest life possible - it seems to be the most difficult thing to achieve! I'm an internet enthusiast and I've been a webmaster since early 2007. I like: blogging, developing sites using open source software, social media, computer games, '80s music, comedy & horror, animals, crunching on M&Ms peanut and Smarties!
