If I DiE ToMoRrOw - While fretting over my sickness, i ponders on the issue of death and what life means to me.

I hate being sick.

I know it’s morbid. As I lie on the bed feverish and squirming from a mind-blowing migraine, I began to picture myself awaiting death. What is death really like? Since nobody ever lives to tell about it, I suppose one would never know unless one dies. With my head throbbing away furiously, I derive at a shocking revelation-if I should die now, I would be leaving my loves ones.

Urghh…wrong time to be sick. I fret over my religious obligations. Oh why why why? Why have I allowed myself to fall sick? There is just too much to do.

It’s easy to forget how vulnerable you are when you are healthy and bursting with energy. But when you are ill in bed, the sense of loneliness and helplessness plus confinement can be so overwhelming. I feel totally miserable. Feelings of self pity wash all over me as I cry. “Nobody can understand the pain I’m suffering…,”I whine and whine “oh the pain is too much to bear…I would never forget how this feels like”.

But each time I recover and get back to my usual perky self again, I forget what it’s like to be sick. I can’t fathom how seriously-ill people feel. I guess while it’s easy to drown in self-pity, it’s never easy to understand others’ suffering unless you are in their shoes.

But one life-changing scene will never seep out of my memory. Somebody, each of us will have to go through death-alone. If I were to die today or tomorrow, would I have lived a most fulfilled life, or would it seem too unfinished? I believe that latter is true for me. But what kind of life would be a fulfilling one? For me, it was to do something great, admirable and well remember by people around me.

But my recent bout of sickness made me rethink life. What good is a life full of achievements and credentials, unless it is used to touch somebody’s life? People remember you for what you meant to them when you were alive, not what you had to achieved. Don’t you think so?

I am ashamed to say that I have yet made a big difference to someone else’s life. As I picture myself on my deathbed now, I wonder what would most people- kins and friends alike, remember me for when I am gone.

They would most probably remember me for being the sweet, spontaneous, witty guy who is good with works and sometimes ferocious. But do I mean anything to them beyond these physical attributes? All my life, I have been placing material goals before others. Like most people, I tried to have them all. In school, there was the wild paper chase. In the working world, we got caught up with the rat race in pursuing material things like money, status, cars and houses. There doesn’t seem to be time for meaningful things.

If you too have been spending a large part of your life on frenzy go, it’s time to stop and think, hey where does this lead to? Ultimately, we will still end up with the same fate, of which there’s no escaping. The big question is, what do you want to be remembered for when you are gone? For all your achievements or for what you meant to those who loves you?

I guess for a change, I should invest in my relationships with those around me. There words sum up everything I need to know, “The best and the most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart”- Helen Keller

Maybe being sick isn’t so bad after all, as it helped me to rethink my priorities in life.