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.

Rezeki

Some years ago I began to be sensitive to the idea of ‘energy’. Perhaps Lyall Watson’s book ‘Gift of Unknown Things’ started it all rolling way back in 1986. My flatmate (well actually landlord though we seemed more to be flatmates than anything) had a copy of the book and I devoured it.

Then also ‘Supernature’ the book which really launched Lyall’s literary career while just about killing off his scientific one. I guess scientists who set out to find the link between mythology or superstition and science don’t get greeted too warmly in those academic circles.

One story in ‘Gift’ sticks in my mind till today. Well, a few do actually, but this one I have told and retold many times. If I remember correctly, Lyall spent a year in a small community in Indonesia, getting to know the people, their customs and so on. One festival - was it a harvest festival? - he gathered with the villagers in a rice field late one evening, waiting for the signal from the village headman to begin the festivities. The headman in turn waited for a signal from the ‘Ketua Adat’ or head of customs and traditions, who seemed to be listening to the heavens. Lyall concentrated hard and thought he eventually could hear the wash of the stars in that brilliant twinkling night.


Then, the Ketua Adat heard something, waved his arm and a big drum was sounded, signaling the start of the celebration. All through the night and for the next 24 hours, there was music and dancing and merriment. And that big drum. It sounded out its own rhythm, completely out of time from the music, yet consistent and regular. Lyall took a note of how many times the drum was sounded in an hour or so and thought no more of it until some years later when he was doing some reading on Resonance.

It seems the Earth has a heartbeat - every so often, there is a peak in all the vibrations and the Earth, as a complete entity, lets out a heartbeat as it were.

What was startling was that the frequency of that beat was exactly the same as the frequency of that big drum in the middle of that rice field in Indonesia.

Somehow, these simple folk could tap in to the rhythm of the Earth. It was that which the Ketua Adat was listening to that night.

I have never been sensitive to that beat, but in the last decade or so I have realised I am indeed sensitive to other things. I am completely uneducated in this area - despite the fact I once owned a holistic business which offered yoga classes, tarot and angel card readings sold ‘new age’ books and where I practiced as a hypnotherapist.

In the last few years though I have become more attuned to the ‘feel’ of a person or a place. Acting completely on instinct, I’ve become sensitised towards the energy of someone or someplace. People and places give off signals which I interpret in my own way - some people give off good ‘vibes’ and other don’t. Some places are great to work in, others to relax in and so on.

When Mei and I got married and moved to the flat we now occupy, it felt to be a great place to live. There was, and continues to have, a great sense of calm and warmth. Certainly I have never felt more loved or loving in any other place.

And yet, that energy changes - it is affected by people and things. Not long after we moved in, I felt a slight negativity I the air. I put up with it for some time as it really wasn’t a big deal. But eventually I figured it was time to develop other skills so we chose and bought a Singing Bowl - one we chose after testing quite a few. This one sounded just right - completely on instinct of course.

We made it peal and sing and did our own instinctive ‘space clearing’ and the flat felt so different after that.

More recently, I had a friend come over who just about swims in negativity - to her, everything had a ‘no’ or ‘but’ or ‘cannot’. Even with my positivity, I made no dent in that aura she insisted on carrying about her person.

The next day, I could feel remnants of it hanging about the place and so for the first time in months took the singing bowl off the shelf, walked around the flat and cleared the space.

And how that bowl sang that day! It was almost as if it was rising to the challenge with gusto.

‘Energy’ is an interesting idea. I’ve walked into flats and offices which have just felt so ‘dead’. And invariably these places are associated with problems, illness and so on. And yet, it can be so easy to make incremental changes.

One good way is to do what the Malay kampung folk have done for generations. Their kampung houses are closed up at night to prevent animals and other unwelcome guests from coming in. In the morning - and those are very early mornings indeed as people prepare for the Azan Subuh or early morning prayers - the wooden shutters are flung open to let in Rezeki or Good Fortune.

It isn’t just the quality of air in a kampung, for I get the same effect living in a flat in Singapore. You should try it too - fling open the windows of your flat early in the morning and stand there for a minute or two, breathing deeply. Make sure it’s early. Close your eyes if you want to. There’s a freshness in the air, the smell of grass or morning dew perhaps, which invigorates. And energises. It clears the head and sets the tone for a great day ahead.

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?

Bucket List Part 1

My thoughts have drifted over the idea of death recently. I guess it started with that whole conversation we had in Johor when Johann, Joe, Brian and I went cycling there recently. This was where we talked about how great it would be to plan our own funeral.

My Facebook status message proclaiming the same attracted a fair amount of comment, some of which was surprising.

In the couple of weeks since, there have been the deaths of a senior minister in Singapore and the very tragic suicide of Tyler Clementi to occupy my thoughts.

Then last night, after my evening plans were disrupted and I chose to stay home for some quiet time on my own rather than join Mei and some friends for a birthday celebration, I decided to put on a DVD I’d bought some years ago but had never watched: The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.


Maybe it was a touch predictable, but a movie starring either of these two cannot be anything but brimming with excellent acting. What more one with both of them? Nicholson’s edgy, just this side of over-the-top characterisation fit the role well and contrasted nicely with Freeman’s quieter, more understated style.

More importantly to me, the theme sat perfectly with my recent thoughts of mortality and the impermanence of life. There were a couple of stand-out moments in the movie for me, most notably these:

Is it really Egyptian?
The two questions you get asked when you reach Heaven’s Gate or wherever it is they believed you went to, that is.

“Have you found joy in your life?
Has your life brought joy to others?”

We’ve made our lives more and more complex. Our day-to-day is an amalgam of career (with its own intricate mix of goals, interaction, satisfaction, remuneration and so on), home, children, recreation, familial obligations and so on. We’ve long recognised we need to return to basics, to somehow rediscover the simple purity we had at childbirth, and to divest ourselves of the bits that bring us to the edge of stress-induced paroxysm of panic and nervous ruination.

We attach importance to so many things that really don’t matter in the greater scheme of things. Douglas Adams discussed it in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when he described the perpetual human state of unhappiness:
“Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

How succinctly and well put.

To understand these two questions on a deeper level, I guess we’ll need to examine what actually ‘joy’ is. For the purpose of brevity and because this is my blog, I shall simply think of ‘joy’ as a state of pure contentment that is divorced from external causes and influences i.e. it isn’t showing the middle finger to the driver who cut you up, or bumping into your ex when you’re out with your new, drop-dead-gorgeous, ultra-rich, uber-sexy girlfriend. Nor is it winning the lottery or that multi-million dollar account you;ve been chasing for 6 months. OK, you get the idea of what it is NOT?

So what is it?

Well, I guess it’s different for everyone, but perhaps it can be described as that feeling you get the moment every part of your being connects simultaneously and completely with every part of the universe. That point when you suddenly understand who you are, and why you’re here in the first place. And that it has nothing to do with small green pieces of paper (heck in our currency that’s only five bucks), or the idiot in the Mercedes, or your ex.

It’s that moment when everything makes sense, and you can see and feel and understand that despite suffering that may be around you, or death, or destruction, that you are indeed one with everything you can see or hear or feel or touch or smell.

So, if we were to condense our life’s purpose into two questions, I guess these two would be it.
Many have said it, sang about it, led people towards it, even preached about it - and some in the process have moved many small green pieces of paper from other people’s pockets into their own - and indeed some of my favourite lines have been in Lennon’s songs and Richard Bach’s books and so on.

But at the end of the day, or perhaps at the end of our lives, what really matters is whether we, personally, can answer ‘Yes!’ to both.

Part 2 coming up soon…

Us and Them (With thanks to Pink Floyd)

My nephew who is studying law had his first encounter with overt racism just the other day. A lecturer made some pretty disparaging, but increasingly common, remarks about the Chinese going home.


Us and them
and after all we're only ordinary men
me and you
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do


One can’t help but reflect on the parlous state of affairs in Malaysia presently. Contrast this with my own positive outlook just 3 years ago when I went cycling to, as the New Straits Times put it ‘reaffirm my faith in Malaysia’. See some of my blog entries from that time.. When I just finished the Celebrate Malaysia! ride, and my articles in The Star here and here.

At that time, I declared the Malaysia of old still exists. Certainly there was evidence of this in my encounters with the rural or less-urban folk. It would seem, however, that the intervening years have conspired to undermine my optimism. The numerous cases in recent times of increased racial intolerance seem to be evidence of a rising tide that we would do well to be more than just wary of.

In many ways I am unmoved. I still hold out some hope that things will be resolved and that one day we will move away form the politics of division, suspicion and hate and back to the ideals my generation and the generations before me grew up with.

But it seems those clinging on to power (and its attendant benefits and rewards) have an opposing view, using every tool at their disposal to create wedges and divisions among the racial groups that once lived in harmony.


forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died
and the General sat, and the lines on the map
moved from side to side


In a way, this is not unlike a war. One where the Generals sit, manipulating the armies through governmental policies, the insidious propagation of racial stereotypes and thus racism, the refusal to condemn (and thus implicitly supporting) racist groupings or individuals and the tight control over any attempt to express a contrary opinion.

As it was in the Great War, the infantry were the sacrificial lambs, expendable and indeed, expended in great numbers. The difference lies partly in the fact the sacrificial lambs are not losing their lives, though many are losing their livelihoods.

The main difference though lies in the fact the Generals today are not manoeuvring to gain an advantage in a just and honourable battle. This is an economic fight and the rewards are personal financial gains, no matter the cost to the pawns. I won’t discuss the strategies, the reasons and the benefits of this modern equivalent of the ‘divide and rule’ ideology. We know how it works. We know they’re trying to make it work. And we know that with each passing day, their hold on power is gradually slipping and like the desperate lunges of a drowning man, they cling ever harder to the only way they know how to rule.


Black and blue
and who knows which is which and who is who
up and down
and in the end it's only round and round and round


Amongst the pawns, there are those who know no better and thus we can begin to forgive them their racist transgressions. But when one encounters an educationist who spews ignorant, intolerant, reprehensible invective as has been the case with my nephew’s encounter or with the two recent cases reported in the press, one can’t help but feel some sense of alarm.


haven't you heard it's a battle of words
the poster bearer cried
listen, son, said the man with the gun
there's room for you inside


I encouraged my nephew to speak up the next time he has a similar experience. Being his first time, he was understandably nervous and caught off-guard. I am hoping he will not be the next time.


Down and out
it can't be helped but there's a lot of it about
with, without
and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about


Silence and neutrality benefit the status quo. And the status quo right now is totally unacceptable. It is, in fact, abhorrent. As citizens of a democratic society it is our duty to speak up and to protest against the ignorance and intolerance that is insidiously seeping into every aspect of everyday life.


out of the way, it's a busy day
I've got things on my mind
for want of the price of tea and a slice
the old man died 


The foundation of how we operate as a society is based on certain tenets including respect for and acceptance of one another. Every society needs to engage within itself and without too, in order to grow and survive. Racism diminishes a society’s ability to prosper whether economically or culturally. Any government that chooses to allow racism to fester eventually corrodes from within and falls in on itself. History has enough examples of that.

Love after Love

In that iteration of me which is part counsellor and part coach, I have often observed or worked with people who exhibit a confident exterior only to reveal a sensitive, uncertain side of their personality under certain circumstances.

In actual fact I would not exclude myself from this category - and the more astute among you would note my attempt to disguise this side of my character in double-negatives phrasing.

Recently an old friend posted a few lines of a Derek Walcott poem and I had cause to read it through again and again.

I reproduce it here for no other reason that it struck a chord within me.

Love After Love
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

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.