Uncle Wai's Story

I went to my brother (Uncle Wai)'s funeral in Hong Kong last week. Uncle Wai passed away on 6th October, 2009 at the age of 66 due to heart function failure. His funeral service was held on 23-24th October, 09 (Fri-Sat).
Uncle Wai lived a relatively simple but happy life. He was married to Auntie Lai-fong for over 35 years and had a son and a daughter. In his last 10 to 15 years, he became very much involved in voluntary activities in his local Catholic church. He dedicated most of his private time in caring and helping elderly people in the parish. He always put his concern of other fellow members of the church even before his health. Here were some comments I gathered in the funeral service which provided some glimpses of the work he had done and what he had achieved:
One day the parish priest went to hold a burial ceremony for a member of the church in Cheung Sha Wan cemetery. He suddenly found Uncle Wai standing behind him whom he didn't expect. He asked Uncle Wai why he was there. Uncle Wai replied that he wanted to participate in the ceremony to pray for his friend. Knowing Uncle Wai's poor health, the priest had no way but to forbid him from going further up the hill for the burial ceremony.
Another Sunday morning, Uncle Wai was helping in organising activities for an excursion in the church for elderly people. Uncle Wai saw that there was no camera available. He thought the elderly usually would very much like to take pictures in those occasions. Without any hesitation, he rushed back home to get a camera, and returned with a redden face, continuously panting and said, " I got the camera".
On the very morning before Uncle Wai fell into coma, Sunday 4Oct, he still remembered that there was a function organised for the church community. He called up Auntie Lai-fong several times to remind her details of the activities, and asked her to call some elderly fearing them might not wake up early enough or they might have forgotten about the event.
At the close of the funeral service, another priest from the parish requested for one more minute. He said he has to say a few words about the day Uncle Wai passed away. Uncle Wai died at around 1:30 pm. A requiem mass was organised for him at 8 pm the same evening. Despite a very short notice, there was a massive turnout of attendance. The whole church was fully filled with relatives, friends and fellow members of the church. The priest was particularly moved as there were crowds of elderly people who just came for the hour-long mass to pay Uncle Wai's last respect and prayed for his passing. The priest said in his own words as 'cool' and 'exceptional'.

Uncle Wai was an ordinary person by most standards. It was his enthusiasm in caring and helping other people that made his story a very special one. Uncle Wai had given out much effort in concern of fellow members in the local church community. He also received much reward in personal satisfaction and happiness which we could see from his face whenever we met him.