Tuesday, November 23, 2010

G’bye, friend

1,054 friends, yet he died alone.

It’s intriguing how cliched the statement “life is short”, “death is unpredictable”, “umur orang siapa yg tahu” might be, but it still struck when death happens near you. Not to mention the similarities you have with the person; age, occupation, number of family members, and so on. A former colleage of mine died in the middle of this year. It’s a shocking news. He was in mid 30s, left a wife and a son. I feel sad for his family. But, without minimizing my condolence, I might not understand the sad feeling fully because I don’t have what he had, a wife and a son to support.

Yesterday I heard another death news. A classmate in college died. He was as old as i am. He was also single. Our difference is character; he might be the center of universe whenever he went, while I tend to shun attention away. I’m sure that the 1,054 friends in his facebook are people he knew, not just anyone who happened to add him which he happened to approved. I, the marginalized part of our class, didn’t hang out with him often. Yet it struck. He was the first in our class to die. And we’re only 28-29. He was a likable person with a big wide smile and a loud laugh. He made friends easily and was one of the brightest in our class. He was so young and had a bright future. The saddest part is that he died alone in his room in his boarding house. He might be already dead for more than 24 hours before people found him. He died of heart attack.

I can’t stop thinking of his last day. Did he know? He was hospitalized for the heart attack sometime ago. At that time, he mentioned about death in his status. But he survived. He continued his life, full of creations. And the night before his death, he attended another classmate’s wedding, who had lost his dad a day before the wedding. He was there to support him, the living who was left behind by the dead. And I wonder what happened at the time of his death? Was it so fast that he couldn’t grab his cellphone and call someone for help? Or was he glad facing death that way? Glad that no one could see him suffering? So no one could see the big wide smile disappeared.

And there’s this cliched question of why a good person dies young. I believe in the reverse logic, that because he was grant a short life that the life was very lively and meaningful.

Good bye, John. Nevermind the death, you were the liveliest person we know.

4 comments:

  1. i've just one of best friend is last week..as old as we are..after 4 years not contacting each other, i heard he died becoz of motor accident..
    life is too short right?

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  2. indeed. and the fact that we'll die alone...

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  3. Un, adik angkatan bi meninggal Selasa malam.. Kanker yang sudah menjalar kemana-mana.

    Persis seperti yang uni sampaikan, almhmh dikenal penyayang, ramah, murah senyum dan label positif lainnya. Dia memanggil orang-orang baik dengan cara-Nya

    *oia, ini blog baru bi, baru pindahan :D

    ReplyDelete