Jade Yuting Pang

I write this to lighten the weight I’ve been carrying, and perhaps to make sense of what feels impossible to hold.

I’ve always been the kind of person who absorbs the atmosphere around me. When tragedy strikes a family, I don’t just witness the grief, I soak it in. The heavy sadness, the unspoken guilt, the lingering shock of those left behind. It settles in my chest before I even understand what happened.

Today, my uncle’s body was cremated. If I don’t write this down, the weight will sit inside me, turning stagnant. This is my way of closing the chapter, for my own mind.

He was my fifth uncle. We weren’t especially close as I grew up, but he left enough of an impression that I once wrote an entire Chinese essay about him. Childhood visits to my grandmother’s house meant seeing him, always there, always ready to play, carrying an easy, carefree presence.

Every Chinese New Year, he blasted Hokkien music through the house, loud enough that you could hear it from behind the gate. He lived life as a happy‑go‑lucky soul: no heavy obligations, no wife or children, just taking each day as it came, free and unburdened.

In a way, he came into this world alone, and he left alone. His passing was sudden with no drawn‑out caretaking. One moment he felt unwell, and the next, he was gone.

It makes me realise how much of a mystery life really is. One day a person is here, filling space with their voice and presence. The next, they are ash. The absence feels surreal. When Chinese New Year comes around, or when the family gathers for dinner, there will simply be an empty chair where he once sat. A familiar laugh permanently missing from the room. The Hokkien music that used to fill the house won’t play again.

I’m still holding some of that shock, the way I hold everyone’s. But watching someone leave so abruptly is also a reminder to live with as few regrets as possible, so that sudden departures don’t leave behind unfinished words or unfulfilled moments.

He lived on his own terms, and he left on his own terms. Writing this is how I set down the grief I’ve absorbed, let him rest, and carry a little less weight back into my own life.

Grief is heavy, but release is possible. And in that release, there is space again for living fully, intentional, and unafraid.