Headline The New Paper 4 August:
Matriarch, 97, still alive but family fight
over her last rites.
One side comprising the older family
members want their matriarch Mdm Ng Siang Eng to make
her final journey with Buddhist rites. The opposing side led
by a grand-daughter is insisting on Christian funeral. The
old madam can’t have her say because she suffers from
dementia.
According to the older family members, the
matriarch was ordained more than 50 yrs ago at Kong Meng San.
They believe it is their mother’s wish for Buddhist funeral and has
often repeated to us all.
The grand-daughter who wants a Christian
funeral said her grandma was baptised in March 2008. That is
only 3 yrs ago at age 94 and suffering from dementia. A photo
showed she was in a wheelchair while being baptised.
This reminds me of my own grandmother who
was surreptitiously baptised while bedridden just a couple of
months before her untimely death. All her life she was a
deity worshipper and had never
indicated she wanted to be a Christian. The arrangement was
made by step-sister without the my knowledge or my grandmother’s
blood relatives.
This reported case is not the only one and showed
how Christians have no respect for other faiths.
And the Christian community turned a blind eye on their own
kind!