Lost Grave

My cousin called me yesterday to tell me strange news of my father’s family losing my grandmother’s grave. Yes. Lost Granny’s grave. My father’s brother bought three plots in the cemetery in Port Dickson in 1999 when Gran (Ah Por) passed away aged 100. She was buried in one of the plots. There was supposed to be a tombstone erected a few months later, but Uncle (Peh Deh) dawdled because he wanted something grand. Four years later, and there’s no tombstone, and my relatives have been paying respects at either plots two or three, because some think she’s in plot two and some think she’s in plot three. This April, it dawned on them that some of them have been praying at the wrong, empty, plot. I’d say this is in keeping with family tradition now. Great grandfather’s grave in Hainan was overrun by chickens from the nearby free range chicken farm and was barely visible (Chinese graves are usually a mound marked by a tombstone), because of the accumulated wear from years of chicken feet stampede.