LWE Chapter 2: Death's lessons

Death comes in groups it seems.

Tessie, who took care of my kids for 17 years was the first to experience it this time. Her father passed away a few days ago followed very shortly by her mother. The old couple must have wanted to be together I think. Both had their chalenges in the last few years and Tessie often messaged me about them - the old man had some form of dementia it seemed while the old lady was increasingly frail and needed oxygen and then hospitalisation.

A few days later, my KL friend Julie rushed up to Butterworth to attend a cousin’s funeral.

Then just this morning my best friend Gan’s brother passed away. I still don’t have all the details, but I know Chong Wan fought Leukaemia some years ago so I’m assuming it came back.

All this has caused me to revisit the idea of death and what it is and what it means. I am not afraid of death and never have been. I may have my nervousness about the way I die - please, no fire and no drowning - but I think the main thing is that I would miss life terribly. Life, despite, or even sometimes because of, the challenges I face every now and then, is such a beautiful and rich experience. There’s so much still to do and I think on my death bed I would be thinking of that one more thing I still want to build, or that place I want to visit or the old friend I want to have one last chat with.

In a way this is the idea I’ve often espoused - that we should just forget about this whole Life After Death thing and instead focus on our Life Before Death. I don’t measure my worth in dollars and cents (or Ringgit and Sen as teh case may be) but instead on the positive impact on the people around me and the world in general. There will be haters of course and people whose life journeys and mine just simply do not match up. That’s fine. I don’t live for them. I live for people who were put in my life for a reason. And I feel incredibly proud that some of those people have benefitted from my being in their lives, and I feel chuffed too that others have helped me be better or more enlightened for them having been put in mine.

We’re all here for a reason and a big part of that reason is always to learn. I reckon that when we’ve learnt enough, our reason to exist ceases and we go. Or, when we’ve shown we just are completely incapable of learning, then the Universe probably thinks ‘Alright, enough is enough, let’s yank you outta there…’.

This may sound like growth is a limited or limiting thing. Well, I think in some cases it’s got a short plan and in others the projection is much greater and the timeline correspondingly so too. We are, after all, all individuals. And though this sounds just so Monty Pythonesque, the reality is that we are indeed unique, with unique traits, offerings, desires and needs. And plans.

Our lives are really a constant process of renewal - of learning and in some ways, unlearning too. We grow yet we revert to a childlike state.

Death too, is part of the process of renewal but here’ the interesting insight I had today: Death is not just a part of renewal for the departed. It is for those who are left behind too.

Interesting that death, by its very nature, gives birth - in this case to an important idea. Well it is to me, at any rate.

Here Lies Greatness

What makes a man great? And what makes a great man?

I guess we could say the answer to the first would be his words, his thoughts, his deeds, the effect he had on the people around him and more. The answer to the second could encompass background, education, mentors, faith… the list goes on.

I could think and write a little about all these but I would prefer to write a little instead about a great man I knew. One whose life embraced all of the above. And then some.

He would understand too that I now choose not so much to write investigatively, but to write anecdotally instead. For here was a man whose life was a rich tapestry of stories. And if the measure of a man were the stories he left behind on the lips, in the minds and in the hearts of those whose paths crossed his own, then Mr Sebastian Vincent would be a giant among men.

Indeed to us, he seemed that way - a towering personality who struck terror and humour into our souls at the very same moment. A no-nonsense Physics teacher who took his work seriously and would just as readily take the mickey out of his students. There were those who made fun of him just as he made fun of us. In either direction the gentle mocking remained just that - good humour that never even so much as glanced in the direction of aggression, vitriol, or anger.

In the great play of life that was the lot of the Physics student in La Salle PJ, Mr Vincent was the murder prop - a glinting shining axe that looked menacing and added an edge of fear while being just that little bit incongruously comical. An axe that bound the play together, gave it direction and purpose.

My mother, who made up for lacking the better judgement not to stop at 6 children in the first place, decided that I needed to attend tuition at Mr Vincent’s in preparation for my Form 5 exams. One bad decision balanced out by one brilliant one and so I found myself cramped into this rickety add-on room in No 1 Jalan 5/9B. A room we all thought was partly a stubborn personal DIY project at best (for certainly a qualified carpenter/builder worth his salt would dare not leave this job in this parlous state!), and a physics experiment gone seriously awry at worst.

Still, we trusted the man and figured if the whole shebang collapsed, we would at least get some free Physics lessons while we awaited extrication.

And this would have been, despite the stories we can all tell, a pleasure and a great help.

I had, of course, known Mr Vincent for some years as our families were friends, his wife was my mother’s colleague, friend and church-mate (and my Standard 4 class teacher) and his children were part of my limited social circle every Sunday when we had the SFX Church Children’s Group gathering and mass.

He had never taught me, however, until that moment I stepped into that re-creation of a Black Hole. The immense gravitational pull of his knowledge, personality and sheer presence sucked us all helplessly in. Either that or we had paid good money and there was air-conditioning.

Mr Vincent was a teacher like no other I have ever met. He seemed always to be thinking of something else. A mathematics problem perhaps. Or the mystery of faster-than-light travel. Even maybe when my ancestors actually came down from the trees. This last one was quite likely as really, I sometimes displayed a particularly painful disinclination to comprehending Physics.

When talking to me, I noticed he often failed to make eye contact, preferring instead to look at a point just below my left knee, or a little off my right shoulder. I took this to be a result of being preoccupied with my ancestry of course and never once doubted that though his eyes may not have been fixed on mine, his mind was always probing my own severely lacking version of the same.

And when I opened my mouth to answer a question (usually rather badly) I think now his mind was in hyperdrive, thinking of ways to accelerate to light speed my evolution from chimp to Champ.

One day when the reason I was not making eye contact with him was simply because I was facing the wrong direction and clearly not paying attention in class, I heard my name being called ‘John Cheong’ with the chilling follow-through ‘answer the question’…

I turned to where the voice had emanated and mumbled ‘Me, Sir?’ I had of course just the tiniest idea what the question was, and probably an infinitesimally smaller idea of the correct answer. I think I felt at that moment like a moth caught in a flame… Still, I had to plunge headlong and so when he said ‘Yes - you’ I rattled off a 20-second answer ‘bla bla bla bla bla….’

At the end of which Mr Vincent went ‘Good.’ and I beamed a little crazily at all who had doubted me. Until I heard his voice go ‘More.’
‘More, Sir?’ I stammered amidst the chuckles of the others in class.
‘Yes, more.’
So I plunged further into the abyss… ‘bla bla bla bla…’ I went on for another 30 seconds.
‘Good!’ My relief must surely have been visible despite the almost maniacal edge to my smile then.
‘More.’
My relief fell to earth like a meteor in all its flaming glory, arcing across the night sky. Roarrrrr, boom, crash, pow….
I sucked in a deep breath and ‘bla bla bla bla bla…’ 20 more seconds of sheer agony, fear, imagination, make-believe, prayer, and utter undeniable plain-for-all-to-see complete nonsense and bullshit.
‘Ah.’ he went.
‘Ah? I thought.
‘Good!’ he went.
‘Good?’ I thought incredulously.
….
‘But all wrong’ he added as his final masterstroke, the last nail on my cross of suffering, hammered in with particular glee right smack OUCH! in the middle of my uhm… intellect. It had been wrong from the very first second and he knew it. He knew I would have no hope in hell of rescuing myself in the 3 opportunities he gave me. He was cunning, devious, wicked.

Wickedly funny that is. We laughed. I laughed.

And now, almost 30 years later, I still laugh.

And the funniest thing is that I did learn. And I actually did rather well. For a student not predisposed to the Sciences (well, OK to studies in general) and one who eventually only barely scraped through with passes in Chemistry and Biology, I got the highest Credit pass for Physics - a C3 - and I still wonder about the gravitational pull of Black Holes.

I did Arts in Form 6 and thus missed him. I didn’t miss the stories though and I’d like to recount another here which involves my cousin, Carol Rozario. She attended La Salle for Form 6 and did Physics and it seems Mr Vincent chose to widen his aim to include my extended family too for he wickedly (and deliciously) took the mickey out of her too.

It was just after the first Physics exams of Form 6 and he came in to class with the results. He declared that he would announce all the results out loud by calling each student’s name and their mark out of 100 and should any student not wish to have their marks revealed publicly, they should raise their hands, come up to him and he would whisper it in their ear instead.

Now, I do believe that Carol had her challenges when it came to Physics too - perhaps it had something to do with our common ancestors having only been recently enticed down from trees and introduced to walking upright. Whatever, Carol knew she had done badly so when her name was called out, she waved frantically and rushed up to have her mark quietly revealed in her ear.

Mr Vincent was true to his word and whispered her mark to her, then as she sheepishly made her way back to her seat, he turned to the class and announced in a booming voice ‘Carol Rozario got 29 upon 100 for Physics.’

I wasn’t there but I can just see and hear it in my mind. Utterly, completely, uncompromisingly devilish. And 100% Mr Vincent.

I recently reconnected with an old schoolmate whom I have not seen since 1982 nor communicated with since the late 80s. As early as our second email to each other we wrote about Mr Vincent. We had both attended his tuition class and both felt he had been such a big part of our 16-17 year old lives that now, three decades later, the memory lived on.

When he retired from teaching in our school, we organised a farewell like no other. He arrived in school flanked by schoolboy outriders, in a car with dragging cans and a sign that read ‘Just Retired’, rode in an open jeep through the school field trailed by pretty girls bearing Bunga Manggar and was even garlanded. It was a grand affair befitting of a grand man.

A little later in the year another much-loved teacher retired with much less of an event to which a younger student remarked it didn’t seem fair.

He didn’t know, you see. Didn’t know the enlightenment a truly inspired teacher can bring to even the dimmest minds. Didn’t know that sarcasm could be wielded so effectively and efficaciously. Didn’t know that love can take many forms including patient and dedicated nurturing. Didn’t know that when you’ve endured 2 years of tuition in a ramshackle construction that could also be your tomb, you’d be so glad to see the last of the man who taught there that you’d send him off in the grandest possible style.
He didn’t know.

And I didn’t really know something else too. I didn’t know what Mr Vincent’s life was like these last few years. Well, not directly at any rate.

Some years ago he suffered a stroke while returning from India and eventually came down to Singapore where I live. My brother, Tony, and I went to visit him at the hospital. Tony went up first to his former Physics teacher, now lying in a hospital bed flanked by some of his family. Tony looked down and said ‘Hello, Mr Vincent, it’s Anthony Cheong.’

And Mr Vincent reached out and grabbed Tony’s arm tight. He tried to pull himself up and to say something. The words didn’t come out. They couldn’t. The stroke had taken that from him. As he struggled to tell Tony something, it was instead tears that came. Tears of frustration and struggle.
This man who’d communicated so effortlessly, clearly, lovingly, effectively now couldn’t get a few words out. And cried not from the effort but the failure.

I’m ashamed to say I hung back. I couldn’t. This wasn’t the Mr Vincent I knew. I didn’t want him to struggle for words and to cry. I just couldn’t bring myself to cause him more tears. And I’m ashamed to say that in the following years I failed to make the gesture of a visit to No 1 Jalan 5/9B. I thought of him and asked after him often but at the end I didn’t want to see how he had changed. I wanted to remember him as he had been in the 80s.

I was stupid.

He hadn’t changed at all. Sure he couldn’t talk, or walk or swallow even. But that wasn’t the point you see. The measure of a great man is not just what he is in the present, but also what he was in the past, and more importantly, what he brings to the future. Above and beyond the wonderful stories we all have of him, we have something else too. A mark, a standard, a guide which says ‘Here lies the point at which we know we are on the right track. Here lies dedication and commitment beyond which we discover excellence. Here lies greatness.’

Thank you Mr Vincent for helping me understand Newton’s 3 laws of motion for which I received a C3; and for so many other life lessons for which the rewards are far greater.

RIP Mr Sebastian Vincent (1929 - 2011)

cross posted on http://john-budakkampung.blogspot.com/

Bucket List Part 2

Is your life just a short measure?

“You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.”

I love this line. We often talk about measuring up to others, or being unfairly measured by some - usually our parents. Well, here is a way to work out if we lead lives that ultimately ‘Bring Joy To Others’.

Look at the people who look up to you. What sort of people are they? What values do they espouse? What, in the greater scheme of things, difference do they make to the world around them?

Come to think of it,
what difference do you make to the world around you?

I did a quick audit, had a brief check-through of my friends and family, ascertained (thankfully) that quite probably at least a few of them do indeed look up to me, and then tried to answer those few questions above.

Perhaps I have been lucky, or maybe I have indeed chosen wisely, for the people I have included in my list are on the whole, a bunch of people I would measure myself against most readily. I may not reach their heights, but I have certainly tried to emulate their integrity, their openness, their dedication to family and friends, their living commitment to those around them. I recognise too their frailties, just as I have begun to accept my own.

I think we would do well to occasionally look around us at the people who have chosen to be close to us and who see us as mentors or role models and try to see what it is within them that has drawn them to us. In there will be a tiny picture of ourselves and a good way to work out if we are indeed worthy of their measure.


And in the end…


“When he died, his eyes were closed and his heart was open”

I think back to my father who died twenty-two years ago after an all-too-short struggle with lung cancer. I was there when we heard he had cancer but I wasn’t when he went through the gamut of emotions that are companions of one’s final journey. He died four months after we found out, and two months before I could defer my overseas studies to come home and spend some time with him.

It cut me up to not have been by his side, and more, to not have had the experience of a man-to-man relationship with him in my 21st year.

But I take away more than a slice of respect for the man I loved. A month or so after he’d finally realised there was no hope, he said to the parish priest who’d dropped by one day ‘You know, I am at peace, and I can go. Any time.’

This was a man who’d done much, and seen much. Not in a materialistic way though for that was not his way, just as it is not mine. The things he’d done connected him to nature and to people. Perhaps a little anecdote would explain the kind of man he was:

Dad used to take the boys on a drive to the East Coast every year or so when we were kids. In those days it was a 12-hour ride and we stopped frequently. Once, we took a little detour near the hilly Bentong Pass. This side trip took us down into a valley and bypassed the slow timber-lorry filled Bentong Pass, at least for a few miles.

We stopped by a road-side stall to buy some fruit and when I looked up at a hill nearby where the new highway was being built, I spied two men on scooters pointing down at our car. They mounted their bikes, roared off then reappeared some moments later on the little village road we were on. They came speeding up, stopped, jumped off and greeted my Dad warmly ‘Uncle Cheong!’. Here in the middle of the country, miles from any town, were two men who’d met my Dad, become friends and who rushed to meet him when they spied his green Peugeot 404 stopped by the road.

That was Dad - a simple chap who never made a pile of money, but made heaps of friends.

And when he died, yes, his eyes were closed but his heart was indeed open. It always had been.

So, after the movie ended and I’d wiped away my tears - yes, yes, I can be immensely sentimental and a real softie - I picked up my errr laptop and started on these two blog posts.

And a bucket list.

But this one’s different. No, I have no intention of dying anytime soon and this list is not for a dying man. This list is for a living man. To keep him on track and to make sure he lives a full, rewarding life. One that would help me answer ‘Yes’ if indeed I am asked
“Have you found joy in your life?
Has your life brought joy to others?”

Maybe you’d like to do the same?

Don't wait too late! Five Regrets of the Dying

These words weren't mine, but I find they just make so much sense, hence I'd like to share them with you.

Recently I've been contemplating the topics of childbirth and additions to the world with two good friends soon to be parents - one for the first time and one for the second, and another who became a parent for the first time some months ago.

It's made me reflect on my own fatherhood, my successes and my failings and it has also made me look hard at a philosophy I've espoused for years:
Forget about life after death. It's Life before death that we should all be focussed on.

I've tried to live this way, with varying degrees of success and some extremely painful consequences. The regrets I have in my life are all from not living true to these tenets.

I hope you never have to have those regrets.


Five Regrets of the Dying
By Bronnie Ware, Platinum Quality Author

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.


People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learned never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:


1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, but in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip.  But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to themselves, that they were content.  When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly.

Choose happiness.