Bye Bye Ah Keong

My cell phone rang incessantly during a conference that I was attending on Friday. When I could finally call back, I was told about the death of my cousin Ah Keong.... Harsh intake of breath. I was speechless.....

I am...was related to Ah Keong as he was my stepmum's eldest nephew. He was a really pleasant boy (when I first knew him.. we were teens) who would talk to me everytime I went over to the family house for Chinese New Year and other festive periods. Of course he and I got along as he spoke English well owing to the fact that he studied in England and we were about the same age. We would always sit next to each other at the dinner table or restaurant table chatting away about our experiences in campus, work, life! I had to sit on his left as he was hard of hearing on his right ear and I on my left. If we were seated on the wrong side of each other, you would hear us almost yelling to catch what each other had to say.

He was on his way to work (he stayed in Seremban on weekends and in Gemas on weekdays). Apparently, he was speeding and must be switching lanes and crashed into the back of a lorry. He died on the spot. The family was too distraught to talk about it so I did not learn more about the accident.

When I peered into his coffin (in a funeral parlour in Jalan Temiang, Seremban), I could see the injuries on the side of his head. A wave of sadness came over me. Here was a young man at the start of his adult life and then life is snuffed out in just a split second. He was going to propose to his girlfriend this weekend. He even bought her the diamond ring.

Ah Keong was well loved by everyone. A kind, considerate and well mannered person. Being the eldest grandson to a Chinese family meant a great deal. But with the passing of Ah Keong, the title goes to another cousin who is in Russia now. Stepgrandma was melancholic. It must be terrible to see a child two generations after you die before you do. Ah Keong's parents were in a daze.. it must be absolutely horrible to lose your child. I think that it must be worse than losing your parents.

But I am not sure.. since I do not have any children out of my own womb.

Having lost my mum in the tender years of my life, I definitely have to say that it was traumatic. I had asked God why she had to be taken. But there was never a perfect answer. But I had found peace instead. And yet at Ah Keong's death, I asked the same question.

Frankly I don't see how taking away Ah Keong (or even my own mum) at this time is something good. Surely not for his girlfriend or parents. Surely not for any reason. But that's just it. My evaluation is based on what my eyes can see. And what my mind can comprehend. And I have lived almost long enough to trust neither.So I have to trust in God. I have no other choice.

In the long run, God will be no man's debtor. Even Job (someone who suffered a lot in the bible) had a foretaste of this truth (Job 42: 10-17).In the long run, there is only wholeness and completeness (Revelation 21,22).
In the long run, everything will make sense.
In the meantime there is pain and confusion.In the meantime there is the absence of rhyme and reason.And so I wait upon the Lord and press on, confident that the last line of Ah Keong's life, and mine, has not yet been written. I press on.

And I continue to press on....

This is me 

My ex-boss

She called me yesterday to tell me that she has resigned the morning before. Gosh! That was shocking.. this August she would have been 18 years in this company. We met at Uncle Chilli's shortly after that call. We were joined by one of the directors of my previous company, a trade marketing manager and a former GM of our logistics company. Everyone was concerned for her and she wondered aloud to the director if her move was a wise one.

We asked her why she resigned.. there are always 3 factors as to why a person does so

1) Monetary (that is not a problem.. she is so well paid that her boss (newly installed abt 1 year ago) was not happy)
2) Job satisfaction (this may be one of the subordinate reasons .. it got a bit stale after 18 years)
3) Environment (aha! "People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. "So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people - in the form of better pay, better perks and better training - when, in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue." If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. Are they driving people away? )

My ex boss said that she cannot stand the shit no more. Another one more year of this, she thinks that she will have a mental breakdown. She says that she fully understands how I felt with the system and with the frustration of not being appreciated by the new management.

We know that her move to get out will cause some changes in the company. Close 10% of us have left this year. Upper management will do what it takes to retain the rest of us. I hope that they are not too late...We shall see a dethronement of a queen in time to come...

Bloggers!

I would like to thank Biow and Spot for inspiring me to start this blog altho I wonder if I dare put any of my most delicate feelings in here since everyone (as if) will be reading. Let's see how this goes...

Anne of my life

Anne wandered down to Victoria Island and sat there alone, curtained with fine-spun, moonlit gloom, while the water laughed around her in a duet of brook and wind. Anne had always loved that brook. Many a dream had she spun over its sparkling water in days gone by. She forgot lovelorn youths, and the cayenne speeches of malicious neighbors, and all the problems of her girlish existence. In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of "faery lands forlorn," where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart's Desire. And she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder how the road beyond it goes--what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows--what new landscapes--what new beauties--what curves and hills and valleys further on."

So these are pieces from Lucy Maud Montgomery's book.. Anne of the Island. I had loved the series when I first saw the show and have loved the books till now. It's got such a lovely feeling to it.. this is missing from most of the books I read today.