where is sumiko tan?

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

from her fan...i am also her fan...:o

Make your life count-
http://www.thestar.com.my/Opinion/Le...ur-life-count/



the article produced my sumiko tan as below:

Sunday Times, 14 April 2013

BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
By: SUMIKO TAN

Every death of someone I know drives home the reality that my own days are numbered
A colleague from a sister newspaper died last weekend.
He was in his early 50s and had been ill.
We had covered overseas assignments together in the past, and he had always been helpful, and friendly to me.
I felt very sad by his death, which was unexpected.
On the drive back to the office from his wake, a colleague sighed and said: Wouldn’t it be simpler if we all had a fixed lifespan of say 75 years. Then, when our time is up, we just go – there’ll be no unpredictability to death.
No, said another colleague who was in the car. Such a scenario would be economically disastrous, she said.
Her theory was if people knew exactly when they would die, everyone would behave hedonistically. They would stop work and spend all their money and live it up in their last 10 years.
I chipped in to say that having a fixed life term – and knowing this – would be just too depressing.
If I knew I would die at 75, I would spend my life counting down to my end. The knowledge would be a heavy burden, making it impossible to be happy.
Death, for most, is the ultimate fear.
Most people try not to think about it, regarding it as too morbid and taboo a subject.
I, too, fear death, yet I find myself thinking about it often, although not always in a fearful way.
True, the thought of it sometimes grips me in the middle of the night, leaving me feeling suffocated.
But it is not so much death and dying that scare me.
Rather, it is the thought of the eternal thereafter – for I believe there is one – that really creeps me out.
The concept of eternity is fearsome to me. Imagine a forever going on forever and ever, no end to it at all. The idea makes me so giddy I feel I must get up, drink some water and switch on the TV to distract myself and calm down.
Most times, though, I think about death in a calm, detached way.
Because I don’t really have a religion, I haven’t come to a firm conclusion on what will happen to me when I die. (I do think, though, that there would still be a “me” when I’m physically dead.)
Do you think death could be like being in a pre-born state, I asked H the other day. He’s used to me talking about this subject by now; it’s a good thing he’s not superstitious because I go on about it quite a bit.
Where were we before we were born? We must have been in some kind of eternity because I find it hard to imagine a time when I – or my mind, my soul, my being, whatever you call it – didn’t exist.
So, I blabbered away in Philosophy of Death 101 mode, could a physically dead state be akin to a pre-born state?
Sometimes, I use my impending death to goad me to do better.
Like if I’m running and want to distract the voices in my head that are telling me to stop and rest, I’ll set my sights on a lamppost far ahead.
I’ll tell myself that the number of steps I take to reach the lamppost would be the age I’m going to die. Somehow, this keeps me running.
Once I hit the lamppost, I’ll move on to another marker in the distance, and link the number of steps I take to reach it to, say, the age H will be when he goes.
I dwell on the newspaper obituary pages and imagine how each person died. What’s the story behind every photo? Are there clues in the inscriptions in the obituary? Did he die too young? What is the “best” age for one to go, I wonder. (In my book, it is, yes, 75.)
It doesn’t help that death is an essential part of my job.
Journalism – at least hard news – feeds on a daily diet of death.
Death is news although some deaths are “newsier” than others, as every journalist knows even if he might not want to say it because it sounds so callous.
On any given day, the news schedule is filled with people dying in accidents, murders and natural disasters.
We become a bit hardened by the idea of death. But it is hard to be immune to the grief of those the dead leave behind.
I started my career as a crime reporter and it was routine for us to swing by the Singapore General Hospital mortuary in the morning to see if there were relatives of victims of unnatural deaths we could interview.
That part of the job was the most challenging because grief is such a raw and wretched emotion to be intruding on.
Every death affects two parties – the dead and the grieving.
I have had my share of mourning the loss of people I loved. Every death changes you, if only a bit, in a different way.
In the 1980s, a family member died – young and in unexpected circumstances.
It made me a more wary person because I realised then that life can take sudden turns that can leave you devastated, and so you must somehow watch out for these curveballs.
In 1990, my grandmother died at the age of 89. It brought home to me how death can be a release from the ailments of old age.
A decade later, my father died after a long and painful illness. That, too, made me see that death can be a form of escape.
The death of someone close to you brings on a gamut of emotions, the oft-cited five stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
It is also a wake-up call to face your own mortality. It drives home how you really have no control over your lifespan, no matter how you monitor your health or safety.
We all have a limited shot at life, and who knows when it will end.
I found out about my colleague’s death via e-mail late last Sunday night.
A few hours earlier, I had gotten into a little tiff with my mother over something trivial. It was my fault, although I didn’t want to admit it.
I was shocked and saddened by my friend’s death. It also put my actions and priorities into perspective.
I didn’t apologise to my mother there and then, but I did so the next morning.
We all will die, there’s no doubt about that.
The question is, while we are alive, do we know how to live?

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