Reflections

A colleague's dad passed away this week. Another colleague shared her experience of her mother's passing last year.

I guess most of us would have encountered death one way or another by the time we are half way through our lives. My first encounter with death was the passing of a great grandmother. But I was not close to her so all I can remember was that I took part in the final rites on the last day of her wake.

When I was about 13 or 14, one of my friends' mother passed away because of diabetes. The 3 sisters were in our school and that event hit almost all of us in school because we were either classmates or friends with at least one of the sisters.

The next encounter was when I was 16. I was starting my junior college days when my principal from secondary school passed away. It was emotional for a lot of us because she was a very nice lady. She was my principal for almost 10 years! Mrs M. M. Joseph. She taught us how to be decent people who treat others with respect, how to have compassion and how to help those in need. After the funeral, we found out that she personally oversaw the preparation of a montage of the graduating class. I was one of the selected few she chose to feature and I was very touched.

A couple of years later, my uncle passed away. He was the husband of my dad's sister. Our family would visit their family every Friday since we were kids. He was a kindly man who took care of his family well. He was stern but jovial. I still remember his face till today. He was a taxi driver who drove the morning shift. He would stop work in the afternoon to wash his car, fetch my auntie from her drink stall and then turn in the car to the night shift driver. My auntie shared with us that my uncle took care of everything in the house and when he passed away, she was at a loss. She didn't even know how to buy groceries!

When a person passes on, the people left behind have to go through a period of mourning before getting on with their lives. During that time of griefing, a lot of people will try to comfort them and ask them to be strong, move on, blah blah blah. Personally, I think that the best thing to do is not to say too much. The worst thing to say would be "I know how you feel" if you have never lost a close family member before. I always tell the people I know, when they lose a loved one, that I'll be here if they need me and to take care. What more can you say?

I don't know how I would react if any of my loved ones passed away. So I never tell people to get over a death of a loved one. But I can only say that if the person passed away suddently, at least they didn't suffer. If they passed away after a long period of sickness, at least they are free. I can't claim to say that death is a release because I don't know what we will get after death. I'm afraid that I will end up in hell. I pray that I won't but I wouldn't know, would I? All I can do is to do my best to be good....and pray.