One Born & One Dies January 2010
Share Article One death. One birth. This happened in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Jasmine gave birth to a baby boy at 12:30 a.m. 3.9 kilos. It’s her and Kun’s third child.
I am on the balcony at 6 a.m. hearing him cry. Tears and lungs, breath, release. Sleeping after his nine-month water world journey. Every day is a celebration.
I walk a dusty path and across the Highway of Death to Jasmine Lodge. People gather to celebrate the passing of Jasmine’s grandmother. She slipped away during the night after eighty-four years.
She was healthy and happy.
Friends and relatives gather under a pavilion to pay their respects. They visit the frail Buddhist monk with a monetary gift. He ties a red piece of yarn around their wrist.
The ceremony lasts three days. Women teams prepare vats of soup releasing vapors. Grilled meat and fish aromas curl through bamboo meeting music and the melodic chants of singing, chanting monks.
Tomorrow is a procession to the pagoda for her cremation.
Led by six monks in orange robes 200 people followed the rolling wagon carrying the wooden casket in blazing heat along The Highway of Death. After two kilometers we entered the pagoda.
A bus of kids and nuns arrived.
Her casket was carried up the stairs and placed on a metal platform. Her husband led a procession of monks and family members around the tall tapered white and blue building carrying her picture and yellow flowers. They stepped back to allow attendants access. They opened the casket so family members could leave something personal inside.
On a pavilion monks chanted. A man read a final tribute about her life. The family expressed their love. Men put small logs into the casket. They closed it, rolled it inside and piled more wood around it. They lit the fire and closed the metal door.
People sat silent, whispering, drinking water. They observed the top of the tower with four serene Buddha faces and exhaust pipes. A wisp of black smoke escaped into clear blue sky followed by heavier billowing gray and white snow.
Everything burned for three hours.
Her bones were collected, placed in a family urn and returned to her room. They created a human figure on banana leaves. After 100 days her bones will rest in a family stupa at the pagoda.
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