I don't know what title I should use for this post. So I shall leave it empty. Perhaps "empty" might be a suitable word for this post.

Although I have seen numerous deaths during my attachment to A&E wards, the feeling of seeing someone you know just pass away is as piercing as it can get. An uncle whom my dad is very close has passed away this evening. Every Chinese New Year, my family will be the only people within my dad's family to visit them. This uncle of mine is actually not my 'blood' uncle. He's so-called adopted by my paternal grandmother when he was young. I heard that his parents didn't really care for him, so he stayed with my grandmother and even called her 'mother'.

When my paternal grandmother was around, she took him like one of her own children. Not wanting to force him, my grandmother said that this uncle can choose whether or not to wear the tradition attire during her funeral. In the end, he wore the attire and went through all the rituals like what the children of my grandmother did. So this is just a brief history of this uncle of mine.

He was diagnosed with liver cancer, most probably at the terminal stage. He's been in and out of coma for the past 3 weeks. Only just a few days ago, he awoke from his coma state and was able to look and signal to people around him. He can't talk due to the ETT tube inserted. This afternoon, he slipped into a coma and his condition deteriorated. Calls were made between my paternal family and my mum rushed down as soon as possible. I am very tired after an entire week of work and I thought I could have a good rest. The news came and I had to be there in place of my dad since he's working and he can't just leave like that.

When I reached the MICU, his heart rate was only 30 odd. Blood pressure is only 25/18, which was a very bad sign. Normal people would have a BP of about 120/80. So you can imagine how bad his condition was. After about 20 minutes there. I could see that his heart rate dropped to zero occasionally. I knew it's time for him to leave. Memories flashed across of those days when we visited his home which was filled with tanks of hundreds of Luohan fish. I am sure the rest of the people inside the room had such memories flashed past their mind as the alarm of the monitoring devices kept sounding off. The nurse told us to go in and take a last look and the elders finally understood the situation.

Do such memories only flash back when situations like this happen? I am not sure about how other people felt. But for me, such memories are both sweet, yet depressing. Sweet in the sense that you know you have had time together with the person leaving this world. Sweet in the sense that both of us had left an impact and impression on each other. Yet depressing is the departure of this person forever. Depressing in the sense that such memories will only gray out with time.

Like I always tell my friends, spend quality time with your loved ones so that you'll have plenty of such memories to keep when such a time comes. You may not have the luck and time to say the last 'goodbye'. So, allow such memories to act as a bridge to link the living and the dead. Make use of the time now fruitfully rather than to moan and regret not spending enough time with them when they were around. Allow me to quote a phrase from Leonardo da Vinci which I personally like the best:

"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death."