Facing death

 There is an ad in the Taipei Metro recently featuring three people, all famous celebrities. One man has his hands cupped around his ears... a woman has her hands covering her mouth... another man has his hands covering his eyes. "Regarding death," the caption reads, as three voices read out, "What is your attitude?"

There are three different kinds of ads, with similar messages. The setting for each ad is set in an airport, with the main character sitting and symbolically waiting with a packed suitcase. "Facing death, [you] should listen, talk, read". Listen to the advice of the medical care specialists, listen to your friends and relatives... Talk about your health, talk about death, about leaving this world, express your love, your regrets, your dreams before it is too late... Read about how to prepare for death, about the experience of falling ill, about the difficulty of dying, about the difficulties of letting go...

I have seen the ad numerous times, and every time I stop to watch it carefully again and again. "Facing death, what is my attitude?" I would stop and ask myself. Death will come, one day or another. It will come to me, as it has numerous times before, to take my loved ones, to take my friends away.

And it will come to me, one day or another, and take me away. What is my attitude? I am not afraid, I have nothing to regret about if I were to leave this world today. I just hope my leaving one day will not leave behind too many broken hearts and people aching. I want to go quietly, as quietly as I came, and hopefully leave something to this world and some of its people. Which is part of the reason I feel compelled to write and take pictures, in attempts to capture moments when I am on this world still and to share them, lest those precious little moments go away and are forever forgotten.

What is my attitude toward death of a loved one? I have seen it before, I have experienced it first hand. I held onto dad's hand, while death took him by the other. And I see it now, lurking around mum, at moments when she is hurting, and even at moments when she is smiling and laughing.

"Contemplate death... remind yourself everything will come and go... remind yourself that everything you have will one day go away" as the Buddha taught. Am I afraid of losing people dear to my heart? Yes, I am. I am only human. I hurt, I cry, I feel. But in a way I have already lost them, because despite their physical presence, despite them lying next to me, one day they will no longer be there.

There are many people who don't want to see death, who don't want to hear about death, who don't want to read about death. There is such a deep seated fear and taboo surrounding the topic, and they are lost and unprepared when it suddenly comes. Of course, I won't know if it were to suddenly come again how I would react, especially with my mum. But at least we have been frank about it and talked it through many times before. Of course, the ache and the deep sense of loss will be there, I am sure, but in the end there is nothing to fear, nothing to cling onto.