Burial rites have always been part of our lives. They give us a chance not only to bid our loved ones farewell, but likewise to celebrate the lives they lived. Today I attended my first funeral in Indonesia and incidentally it was a Chinese man. The usual things were there, a coffin, flowers, candles, people in white, but I can’t help but notice the doll placed on top of the flowers right above the coffin. The doll is the usual doll which one can find in stores made of plastic, with golden curly hair, wearing white with wings made of white net. The doll likewise was holding a wand and a crown with some glitters. I can’t but ask the woman standing beside me if that doll was part of tradition. Her simple remark: “I think it’s a guardian angel, watching over the dead”, woow, isn’t that spooky! It’s like were the got the inspiration for a lot of killer dolls films such as chuckie, his bride, chaka doll and the latest mama doll of shake, rattle and roll 12. I just noticed that whenever we are fetched from the parish, both the husband and wife come for us. Yesterday, a couple fetched us to bless an asphalt factory, today; another couple came to bring us to the funeral. This same couple told us about the story of their 10 year old daughter who was fond of going to the “adorasi” or adoration chapel whenever her parents came to help in counting the Sunday collection. Once she overheard her parents arguing and taught that they did not want to count the money from Sunday collection anymore, thus she remarked: “so I can’t visit the adorasi anymore?”
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