‘You what?’ said a friend.

The expression of astonishment from another was more specific. ‘You what? You don’t ‘pun-tung’ about doing something like that?’

I had just told them that I had written my own obituary and the sheet of paper bearing my uneven scrawl had been carefully placed with my personal papers. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t have any superstitious fears about writing my own death notice.’

‘Wah, so brave!’ said the first who never fails to observe the ritual of saying ‘Choy, choy‘! accompanied by energetic hand movements to indicate instant dismissal, every time the taboo subject of death comes up. ‘Aiyoh, so weird,’ said the second, referring, I suppose, both to the obituary and its author.

To dispel their sense of unease, I injected a little humour into the morbidity of my subject. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I simply have to write my own obituary, because I don’t trust my daughter to do so, with her appalling spelling and punctuation. One wrongly spelt word, one misplaced comma, and my obituary could provoke hilarity instead of sympathy!’

Both laughed and asked to be told more about the obituary.

Actually I have two( accompanied by a photograph that is evidence of the camera’s great capacity for flattering vain, ageing women). The first which I wrote about 10 years ago, reads: ‘I have loved and lived life richly and deeply, and I embrace its closure with an equal joy.’ I wanted the tone to be completely celebratory, for indeed, I can truly say, with profound humility and awe, that I have had more than my share of good luck, in terms of health, financial independence, family life, and relationships, that has provided me with the necessary background of peace and stability to fully explore my creative and intellectual interests.

The second obituary was written only a year ago, when I realized that the celebration of my life at its close would not be complete without special mention of something that had been a passion from the beginning. It is my passion for knowledge, evident from a very young age, that had culminated in a systematic course of self-study as soon as I went into retirement, during which I voraciously read books both in the sciences and the humanities, to be able to answer for myself the intriguing questions of the what, the how and the why of our existence. There can be no ultimate answers, of course, but that only makes the journey of exploration all the more pleasurable.

In the course of the journey, I have learnt about ourselves, meaning the entire human family, going right back into the mists of time, living out our lives on earth, with all our strengths and weaknesses, our capacities for greatness and folly, for joy and sorrow. And I have learnt enough about the indomitability of the human spirit, to want to cap its celebration in the first obituary with an even more breathless one in the second: ‘It is a privilege to have been a part of the humanity of this, our wonderful planet.’

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About Vignettes...

A continuing flow of little, readable pieces that will constitute what I feel is an important 'legacy of values' to leave behind. Read more about Vignettes...