By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
I used to reminisce about the years when I was frequently required for my father to either accompany him to funerals of his friends or to drop condolence tokens (in the form of cash) to the family deceased.
He (he lived to the late 90s) used to scan the obituary columns of local Chinese paper to stay abreast of the passage of his friends in Papar, fellow oldies among the Hainanese clan and the mahjong pals he got to know in his later years in Kota Kinabalu.
Nowadays it’s a strange kind of deja vu for me, in my 70s, getting obituary and funeral updates electronically via the phone or WhatsApp.
Newspapers still carry such notices and often mutual friends just grabbed screenshot of such and cyberdrop the information.
I just learnt in the last two weeks the passage of two friends via such.
Death and our mortality however unavoidable are a taboo when we’re younger.
I think I started to ponder. My own when I had a stint inserted some years ago.
Since then, I’ve been more sensitive to the passage of people I know: my brother, my brotheers-in-law, dear church friends, golfing buddies, colleagues….
Malaysian men’s life expectancy is 76 (the last I read).
I have friends and family still thriving in their 80s, and also those who went much earlier.
I still drive and moonlight writing speeches and editing papers.
Well-meaning friends frequently wondered ‘aren’t you retired?’.
My stock answer is ‘being retired is not an activity’.
Further, I’m reminded of the acronym ‘RTM’ which stands for ‘retire tunggu mati’ (retire to await death).
I think this may have been coined by somebody making witty use of three letters which are short for “Radio Telivisen Malaysia’.
Ageing doesn’t slow or stop because of greater awareness.
Many countries are experiencing an ageing population.
Singapore and Japan encourage the hiring of old people.
China predicts that care-giving for the aged is one of the businesses of the future.
With online shopping convenience, the promotion of exercise equipment.ent for old people has proliferated.
There are more and more discussions about the disposal of bodies with cremation seemingly gaining more popularity.
I find myself pondering over the assertion that says “you’ll be forgotten sooner than you think…”
