This morning I awoke to the news that Michael Jackson has passed away suddenly due to cardiac arrest. I do not feel a shred of emotion for his death, perhaps because, iconic as he was, he was but a popstar and not anybody in my life. Or perhaps I felt his life in the last couple of years had deteriorated into an abysmal state, dogged by child molestation charges and impending bankruptcy, that he didn't seem happy at all. Or...it could be that he had his shot at life already. He'd accomplished much more than many of us mortals would before our number is up.
2 weeks ago, an acquaintance passed away suddenly as well. I only knew him briefly from a rival firm in the finance industry. As one of those brokers/traders that hailed from the open outcry days, his jacket symbol was BVO and everyone knew him as Bravo.
Bravo was only 35, and he left behind a wife, a son aged 9 and daughter aged 4. He was a good man, a loving husband and father, and from what I heard, a hardworking and loyal lad at the workplace as well. Despite knowing him only briefly, I decidedly liked him as a person. He suffered from cardiac arrest while on the phone with a client in the office. By the time paramedics arrived, he was gone. Just like that, on a not so special weekday, all his sales projects, all his material pursuits, all that, no longer mattered.
His sudden death really puts matters into perspectives for me. Most of us Singaporeans go forward in life caparisoned in immortality, chasing after materialistic desires, which can hardly be faulted given the natural design of our nation, where basic human material desires can mean a lifetime of installment payments; but with events of deaths we sometimes get the chance to fully realize the transitoriness of life, and perhaps be jolted out of the folliness.
I hope the day I go, I do not regret the way I'd spent my given time here on this beautiful planet.
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