Dying

If u were to ask me to describe the month of October this year, there is only 1 word that I can think of - DEATH. Usually this is the month I celebrate a lot of birthdays....My goddaughter's, my mom's, my sister's, mine, my godmother's, a few other friends and many BLCians. But this year, I seem to be receiving news of death one after another. First it was Datuk Sam then Olivia's grandfather & the news of Wendy's (my colleague at UV) dad dying of colon cancer all within the same week. Just last week Swee Lan received news that her sister is in the critical stage of leukaemia and only have a few weeks to live. On Sunday my sister told me her godfather's brother passed away in Ipoh. I’m not close to anyone of them. In fact I haven even meet some of them. But still you just can’t help but feel something every time you receive this kind of news.

Wendy's dad has been in the hospital 4 abt a month receiving chemo treatment. Last Friday as I was getting ready to go to work I received an SMS from her saying that he passed away in the morning. My initial reaction was 'oh dear'. A bit shock because I just visited him on Tuesday. Then pausing for a while I said 'oh finally'. I know, so mean of me, right? As much as I hate seeing Wendy's dad dying, I hate it even more to see her family suffering. They have been in & out of the hospital for about a month taking turns taking care of him. 1 month to see him suffering and dying. When I pick up Swee Lan from the airport after coming back from Shanghai she ask me how’s Wendy's dad. Only thing I could tell her is "dying". Wendy's family are very very nice people. The amount of support they give Wendy despite her having learning disabilities is tremendous so of course I can't help but ask "Why is God letting this family suffer?" And then of course I've learned never to question God because her dad accepted Christ before he died.

I'm finding it hard to smile and laugh a lot for the past few days. I mean I'm not laughing as much as normal (for those who knows me, u'llknow what I meant). Maybe it's because of my constant worrying. Worrying for Wendy & her family, worrying about Swee Lan and her sister. I'm also worrying about work, trying my best to ease Swee Lan's workload as she needs to take leave on & off to look after her sister, worrying if I'm doing enough or not. I've been thinking of my own death a lot too. How would I die? How old will I live until? Would I go peacefully (I hope!), would I die of cancer or heart attack? will I be knock down by a car? (in KL, most probably!). Come to think of it all of us are dying..... slooowly. We just like to call it ageing or growing old. I've been asking myself, as a Christian if it's right for me to be worrying so much. I'm like wasting all my energy on worrying. Shouldn't we trust & have more faith in God? But then again I think that worrying is all part of being human. I would be really, really worried if I don't have all this emotion in me after hearing all these bad news.

I think all these news of dying have really put my perspective of things in order. Compare to death, suddenly all the petty little things in my life like if I have enough money to pay my next bill does not seems to matter. It has really given me a kick in my butt. I've called up friends I haven met for a long time to go out for makan and chat with them. There's this project I wanted to start a long time ago but has been procrastinating about it. I've just talked to someone to help me kick start it yesterday and she seems interested in it and said yes. She asked me why I want to do it suddenly, I just reply "Life is short".

I'm not really in a celebrative mood for my birthday this year. Wanted to take day off but decided not to since I'm in no mood to celebrate & I need to be somewhere, at a training center for work. It's nice to get all the SMS wishing me happy birthday. It has certainly lifted up my mood a lot especially when my colleagues sang "Happy Birthday" to me over the phone. I’m so glad that I was not in the office to hear them ”Live”! PLEASE do not blame me if there's heavy rain for the next few days. I've also received an SMS from Wai Mun who told me her 5 years old daughter, Janell reminded her that it was my birthday. Both of us are still a bit befuddled on how Janell knew it was my birthday all of a sudden and reminded the mom. hmmm......