Thinking things thru'

Weather status: Thunder with heavy rain.

4 August 2008. 27 October 2008. 3 December 2008.

It might just be any other day, any other insignificant dates for just anyone. But to me, these three dates marks the date of death of my dear ones - my relatives.

Life can be vulnerable, today this particular person might look healthy in front of you, doing things as per normal. Yet the next moment, he might just be gone.

Perhaps this is just part and parcel of one's life journey. You are born to this world, you grow old, you get sick. And once time's up, you just get to go back to where you came from. Life, I will say, is a cycle.

4th August, the day when my bed bounded uncle (my mother eldest brother), aged 73, passed away. I still remember how I was so pampered by both him and his wife when I was still a child. Endless of love, care and concern. But after my uncle's wife passed away 14 years ago (when I was still in Primary 2), my uncle couldn't accept the fact of his wife's sudden death. And that, caused Alzheimer's disease to hit my uncle, making him suffer gradually...

My uncle's condition worsened over the years and eventually, apart from Alzheimer's disease, my uncle suffered certain internal organs infections and failures. As a result, he was bed bounded and had to stay in the nursing home to be taken care of by the nurses and doctors. My uncle couldn't eat, he couldn't speak and he just couldn't remember anyone... I guess, being able to go off peacefully after so long is really a relief for both his family and himself.

27th October, I won't forget this day, I swear! I drove at 120km/h all the way form Jurong West Street 42 to Tampines Street 21 just to send this particular old lady off... No wonder I dreamt of her on the first night of her funeral!

My non-biological grandmother (father's side) was 83 years old. For the last 10 years, she had stroke and cancer, but she still managed to go on for such a long period of time. I have to salute her even though she did not treat me well when I was young. It's a long story to why she didn't treat me well for the past 20 years, so I guess I won't elaborate that kind of stuff over here. By the way, she still owe me my 21st birthday present - a car!

And like I said earlier, I will remember this day because I never get to eat my birthday cake this year!!!

3rd December marks the sudden death of my uncle (my mother's sister's husband), 73 years old. This is still very fresh in my mind - 1st December, after the SW1101E paper ended at 3pm, I went over to NUH to visit my uncle. When I reached the ward, my uncle was having his therapy and stuff. He was OK, just that his lips were a bit slanted and that his right eye could not be opened. It looked as though he really suffered from a stroke or something. However, he was still able to do whatever the therapist told him to. I stayed for the whole afternoon till it was time for dinner, and I went out for dinner with one of my cousin.

I wasn't there on the 2nd December as I went out for movie with my friend. Later in the evening my cousin called and told me that my uncle was in a rather critical condition and that his heart actually stopped for 15 minutes before the doctors and nurses found out. My uncle was sent to the ICU thereafter. Everything was under control that night until 4am, another episode of "heart attack" occurred. That's it, he was entirely on life support machine, and was pronounced brain dead by then.

I accompanied my mother to NUH at around 1pm (only managed to go in the afternoon as I went with my cousin to the travel agency to see if I will be able to do a last minute replacement on her mother's placing for the trip to Hokkaido, and thus, caused the delay) to see my uncle for the final time before the life-support machine was removed from him. The life-support machine was then removed at 3.30pm. Once it was removed, within 10 minutes, he's gone... And after all the paper works and funeral arrangements, his body was sent back to Jurong East Street 21 by 6pm.

Till this moment, I am still rather shocked. He still recognised me when I visited him at the hospital, and the next moment...

So, what exactly is life?

You make your parents happy when you are born...
You create happiness to people around you as you grow...
You share your joy with your partner when you get married...
You get devoted to your family when you have your own kids...
You will be delighted after your kids grow up and have family of their own...
But one day when you get sick, everyone around you got worried...
And eventually you will leave the people dearest to you when your time's up...
Thereby bringing sadness and sorrow to them, especially your lifetime partner who is still trying to question him/herself: "Why you and not me?", after having to go through so much ups and downs for that X-number of decades.
Or perhaps their bounding endures even after death?
Can that happen? And will that happen? I wonder......

Think about it. Treasure whoever is dear to you while you still can, then you won't grow to regret it later on.

May the FORCE be with you always!