My boss Bee is back after having taken a week off due to her brother’s sudden passing. On that day of her brother’s passing, she was uncannily quiet. We asked her if anything was wrong but she couldn’t say or explain that unsettling yet not knowing what it was feeling. She had also forgotten to bring her hand phone on that day. Minutes after saying goodbye to me for the day with a relieved grin, she messaged me that her brother had passed away after she had checked her missed calls of the day.
Her brother was a popular gynecologist at a reputable hospital. He was known to be kind and the only doctor who never once shouted at his staff through out his tenure there. On that fateful day, he had completed a minor surgery on a patient and had retired to his office to wait for his assistant to bring him all the patient’s documents to sign. When the assistant entered his room, he was gasping for breath on his couch. He died moments after that. The autopsy revealed that he had three blocked arteries.
He was aware of his condition but not to that severity. He was going to get it fixed after that particular weekend where he was looking fore ward to a medical conference cum holiday in Bangkok with his family.
My boss would never say, “awful” unless it is really beyond awful in other people’s standards. She was heart broken and was very close to this particular brother. She had many times told us funny stories about her brother and how he would help people discreetly (like free treatments to the unfortunate) and many of his patients eventually became good friends.
I thought he had a good death. Painful but short, true to the old (clichéd) adage, “The good die young”.
Carpe Diem because death comes unannounced!
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On the subject of this uncanny “unsettling feeling”, I am quite sure we have all experienced them one way or another. I remember my then 4 year-old nephew Timmy constantly saying’ “So sad!” throughout the day despite being out shopping with the family. That evening my uncle in Bangkok passed on.
At that time, I was half way around the globe and had my “unsettling feeling”. I called home and Dad wouldn’t tell me! He kept on saying, “He is very sick” despite me pleading for more clarity on my uncle. My dad never lied and that one left him no choice out of his own reasoning to protect me but he failed.
Another incident was with my cousin who called one morning from Australia and said she had this “unsettling feeling” and wanted to speak to her daughter who was living here. Her daughter died suddenly the night before and we were all in a dilemma on how to break the news to her. The only solution one of my then 80 year-old relative could think of at that “crucial” moment while on the phone with my cousin was trying to sound “casual”. He said, “Oh, she died last evening. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
My own personal experiences on this, “unsettling feeling” started with my favorite singer, Karen Carpenter. That evening I couldn’t sleep and had this unsettling feeling of her. I saw “flashes” of the Carpenters being headline news. The next morning, I went out with friends and I headed to the music store and took their, “Now & Then” cassette to pay at the counter. The counter girl spoke to another staff pointing at my cassette saying, “the Carpenter girl has died”! My mind was telling me that it was one of those “rumors” but I asked anyway. The friendly counter girl confirmed with a wide toothpaste grin that Karen Carpenter had died the day before and pulled out the afternoon papers (The Malay Mail) to show me. Karen’s non-grinning face was pasted on the top left-hand quarter of the front page with reversed type on black bold borders announcing, “Karen Carpenter Dies! See page 7 for details”
A few years later, it was with my beloved English teacher Marion who taught me how to “write from the heart”. She smiled and waved at me while I was lining up to sign-up for my fall semester courses. Surprisingly I had this sharp feeling that I would not be seeing her again despite her creative writing class being my personal highlight of the upcoming fall semester. She died of a heart failure shortly before the semester and we had a chilly southerner English professor as a substitute. I missed Marion terribly and dropped out of the class. As for the substitute, my other Malaysian college mates also suffered under her tutelage and eventually dropped out!
I don’t know if these feelings are just happenstance or does it connects with the energies of the people whom we love. I have had some weird paranormal experiences and I do wonder if that was my imagination working overtime, but I would welcome more proofs on the spirit.
The guys dared me to lick cream smeared on a piece of paper! For me, that wasn’t even a challenge! 31 march 2008.
