The Death Of Us All

Last night was yet another dinner night. A restaurant half filled with family, lots of food and drink (but we were spared the alcohol 'cause it was a weekday.. ironic isn't it?) and lots of random chatter.

Being the youngest cousin in the family, I've always been a listener at these parties. There really isn't anyone to talk to. The next cousin is 24 and the eldest in the generation below me is 14. It might seem like there'd be a lot of things to talk about since I'm right smack in between their ages but think again. We've been leading our entire lives with no relation to each other except for these parties. We're at different stages of our journey and have absolutely nothing in common in terms of school, work or even interests. Its not to say that we're all not close to one another cause we are. I'm just trying to paint a backdrop of why I seem to be more used to listening than to actually talking and mingling (socializing sounds like a wrong word to use within the family).

So anyway, last night's topic at my side of the table was, strangely, death. The 50 smths and the 60 smths were talking about old times when Mr Eng of Eng's 'kolo-mee' used have a pushcart instead of a unit at Dunman Food Centre; when mahjong used to extend to the wee hours of the morning (they were only 30 smths and could afford the lack of sleep) followed by supper afterward; the 27 bowls of gu-bak-kway-teow after a night of mahjong shared amongst the 6 of them headed by one man called Robin Tan Tian Chye. That's how it all started.

Robin Tan Tian Chye was everything a man could want to be. Fluent in at least 3 languages, single, always available and was most noted for his cheekiness (which could sometimes be rather vulgar) even in front of the elders. No, he wasn't blood related but his family and mine were so close since the days at Marshall Road that he was little less than my uncle ever since I was born. Uncle Robin passed away at slightly over 60 in Australia, a country he so loved and had become a citizen, after close to 5 months of pain and suffering. His jovial self shone through his pancreatic cancer, a rare cancer that somehow struck him so suddenly. Even in his last days, sundng frail yet strong, his last words to me over the phone were "Uncle Robin loves you you know." And hours later, he finally succumbed with a loud yet peaceful gasp.

Pancreatic cancer is relatively rare. Which brought my father to talk about his sister, who was diagnosed about 5 years ago with cancer of the nose, another cancer that though relatively rare, is strangely common in Cantonese people. My father boarded a plane to Australia, where she had made her home to see her one last time. She succumbed just a few hours before my Papa's plane landed so he didn't get to see her before she passed. I've never dared ask him what he felt when he heard the news. But how else can it feel to get on an aeroplane to fly for 8 hours to see a dying sister only to have her move on before you even land?

What these two people shared, other than passing from cancer, was that they came back to their birthplace one last time before they left this world. Uncle Robin came down for 5 weeks, the longest ever since he got his Australian citizenship. Ku-ma came back just before she was diagnosed with the cancer, which spread tremendously quickly. Both had a lot of fun back home, visiting relatives, savouring all our local dishes, Ku-ma even went on a shopping trip to JB for 2 days in a row. Then they 'went back' to Australia.. to die. Did they know they were going to go, thus made their way back to Singapore for one last time? No one will ever know and now that they're probably somewhere better, it's better not to discuss.

You see, that's the problem with death. You can't discuss death as if it were a health science issue because there's no treatment for death. You can't talk about it from a humanitarian point of view because its not a wrong which the UN or other similar forces can remedy or give aid to. So we live in silence, consciously choosing not to talk about death because to do so would be morbid and foul, not to mention inauspicious.

Which also leads to a bigger problem: we all fear death. And the fear of death will bring it about prematurely, if not controlled. Uncle Robin once mentioned this, "I'm not scared of AIDS, because I not gatal. But I'm scared of cancer". And cancer was what he finally gave in to. There is a scientific term called 'auto-suggestion', which means that whatever you 'suggest' to your brain, your body automates. Simply put, the more you think you're ging to die of cancer, the more likely that you will die of cancer.

But what is the point of all this jibber-jabber, mambo-jambo about death? For there is only so much we can say and so little we can do. When we come to the end of our lives, we come to the end of our lives. What's there to talk about? Nothing could be further from the truth. Death is life seen from a different angle whether you like it or not. The world may portray life to be all that there is: hope, love, faith, patience. What they don't tell you is that the very same hope, love, faith and patience are at the very core of death itself.

So the next time you find yourself inexplicably stepping back onto a pavement when you were about to jaywalk, just take note that death might have just whizzed by you in the form of a car. The next time you get a heat stroke and pass out, remember that death was with you through it all, but left you at the last moment. And the next time you get so drunk that you fall down an escalator without knowing it, do make a little offering to your guardian angel, cause death could have taken you then but your guardian angel changed death's mind.