Vashti Chowla, Grade 12
UWCSEA East
“I never realised how rich life was until now.” - Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World
Why do we cower from death, as if it is the big bad wolf, trying to blow us down? Why do we quake in our boots when it comes close to us? Why do we all fear the prospect of dying? Why do we describe it as a dark, bottomless, chasm, one that we fall into and never come out of? Why do we let these cliches define how we feel about facing death, when we have so much agency over how to react to death and its effects?
Paradoxically, death is a crucially significant part of life. It is a given. Without death, what would it mean to live? The two opposites complement each other bafflingly. Death is the only thing we can know for certain, and we build our lives around it. Retirement plans, medical insurance, even inheritance, are all neatly laid out by us in preparation for death. But death is not a bad thing - and it is not something trivial. We don’t live in fear of death on a day to day basis. We just push it out of our minds temporarily. There are many people who have faced death, not fought it, but faced it, and come out of it so wise and knowledgeable - and shared their stories with us. They’ve shown me that death is a great teacher - one that teaches the art of not wasting time, of using every second we have to live.
Why talk about death?
“We’ve been conditioned to live, not die.” - Irish Hospice Foundation
Death should not be a taboo topic. It should be something we are comfortable sharing our views on. According to TODAY, a newspaper in Singapore, a study that was carried out by the Singapore Management University has shown that, “53 percent of Singaporeans said that they are more comfortable discussing end-of-life matters as well as their own death, a 17 percentage point increase from five years ago.” (TODAY, 2019) This definitely shows one that awareness about death is increasing among Singaporeans. It also shows that people are much more likely to be able to discuss their own deaths with their loved ones.
This is very important as it can influence family dynamics in a positive way and can also reveal to family members things that they may have not known otherwise. It is a very difficult and scary thing to discuss, but can help one to overcome their fear of death. And overcoming one’s fear of death is crucial. Ms Siew Luan states, “The fact is that I have conquered the fear of death, and it has helped me to live a more fulfilled life.” This proves my earlier statement. Death shouldn’t be a taboo topic, because if we don’t talk about death, then what is it that will help us overcome our fear of it? This fear is what paralyses us and doesn’t allow our minds to grapple with the fact that one day, we will all die.
People may not realise it, but talking about death and its consequences is a crucial step to ensuring that the lives of families after someone’s death stay fulfilled and happy. Ms Lynn Chan, who was one of the four members of the Nanyang University of Technology who started a campaign called ‘Dying To Talk’, that encourages families to talk about death over the dinner table. A quote from Ms Lynn Chan, 23, said: "We see a lot of families that have been broken apart because of things that had not been clarified by the person who had (died). Things such as inheritance, or something as simple as how the funeral should be like, for example if it should be a Christian or a Taoist one." (Dying to Talk, Facebook)
Not talking about our deaths can certainly break a family, because when things are left unclear, people begin to make assumptions. These assumptions are what can cause the family to break, and this can be avoided if death had just been discussed. As Mr Yeo says, “At the last moment when you die, you’re not thinking of all those things. Oh, what am I going to do with the house? Oh, what am I going to do with the money I still have in the bank?” (Dying to Talk, Facebook) This suggests that the best course of action for sorting out the small details about your death is best done before it, so that even though you aren’t there to oversee it, everything is in order for your family. This not only makes sense from a practical point of view, but it can also encourage talk about this somewhat precarious subject.
Learning from stories about death
During the Human Library talks, there were two incredible people who shared their stories about facing life threatening illnesses. Both their stories showed me that their experiences left them living life better. That facing death taught them to see life in a different way, and that it improved the qualities of their lives. By facing death, it is meant that these individuals have gone through life threatening experiences that changed their view of their whole lives. They realised that parts of the life they were living weren’t fulfilling - and took action to change their mindset. And not only did they make their own lives richer, but they also opened the eyes of those they shared their stories with.
Ms Melanie Row, a parent at UWCSEA stepped forward to share her story about having Multiple Sclerosis(MS). She had a lot of valuable insight to share after going through MS, and many of these insights were positive. She smiled a lot and was very open while speaking to us, answering all of the questions we had. This showed me how she hadn’t viewed her experience negatively, and has now been able to accept it. When I asked her about how MS changed her mindset, she said, “The things that were critical didn’t seem so critical anymore.” What she meant by this is that having MS made her realise that her priorities had changed.
Ms Row used to be a complete workaholic, and was so focused on her work life, that at times she was neglecting herself. Her experience with MS encouraged her to do more things for herself, which is exactly what she did when she moved to Singapore. She currently doesn’t work and instead has time to visit her childrens’ school carnivals or festivals and dedicate more time to things she does; not for anyone else, but for herself. This is how facing death changed her life. Her experience with death was a teacher for her, one that guided her to improve her life.
Ms Vanessa Wiseman, my English teacher, also shared her story about having cancer. She shared her experience in the form of a story she wrote, titled Memento Mori. When she was asked why it was titled this way, she said that it was because this meant that she wouldn’t be living with Death, but a story about life. And because there were many religious references in Ms Wiseman’s story, she was asked about the role that religion had in her experience. To this she said that, “My religion gave me hope, because it had a story for all eventualities.”
When she was going through this difficult time, it was the stories that really spoke to her. The stories that held her hand - that were her flashlight in the dark. This is critical in understanding the influence of our beliefs on the way we feel death. In this case, Ms Wiseman used her beliefs to get her through the tough times she was going through. The stories were her solace - because they addressed what she was going through without qualms.
This way of thinking is also backed up by Hanna Alkaf, who stated in her talk to Grade Nine students on fourth February 2020, “Humans are wired for stories.” The author of The Weight of Our Sky, which won the Young Adult/High School Literature Category award at the Freeman Book Awards, exclaimed. Having grown up on stories instead of lollies as her treats, she has a lot to say about the role of books in our lives. She stressed the importance of ‘seeing’ ourselves, or someone like us in stories, and this proved to me the importance of stories in our everyday lives. And of course, as Ms Wiseman stressed in her interview - death is part of our personal narrative that we call life.
The importance of learning from stories was strongly stressed to me after listening to Ms Wiseman’s story as well as Ms Hanna Alkaf’s talk. It showed me how we can learn the same lessons from stories that their creators did, without going through what they did. A connection built through stories shared. It is not necessary to live our lives in the dark about death, while not realising its richness. These stories that people share about death can help us to comprehend and understand it. This is why it is so crucial to listen to them. It seems that to appreciate life, we must allow ourselves to understand and think about death - and that will make our experience of life that much more meaningful.
Who do you impact with your voice?
“A small fact: you are going to die… does this worry you?" - Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
You have an impact on so many people around you. When you’re facing death, this is intensified. It makes you realise how many people you really do impact, as well as who your true friends are. It also shows you how people react, making you realise some very valuable things about those who you interact with on a daily basis. This was the case with Ms Melanie Row. Not only did her experience make many of her friends reconsider their own lives, but it also affected her family members in dramatically different ways. Because Ms Row was going through a tough time, it made her friends realise that their lives weren’t going to last forever, and that they were going to have to be more careful with what they choose to do.
Ms Row also mentioned the different ways in which her family members reacted to the news of her having Multiple Sclerosis. The fact that she found out that she had MS while on holiday meant that she had to stay back where she was, while her husband and kids went back to their home. This meant that she was separated from her family for a very long time. Her son was completely devastated. She described him as being very scared, and recalled that when she told her kids that she wasn’t going to go back to work when they moved to Singapore, he told her that he was afraid because he thought that she was sick again. Her daughter, on the other hand, was very interested in how her illness worked, and was inspired by it. She described how her daughter had built a hydraulic hand and won a robotics competition she had participated in, because she saw how difficult it was for Ms Row to move and do basic things, with her right side function completely gone.
These two completely different approaches to Ms Row having MS showed me that it is crucial to discuss death. , and Especially our own death. As I had said previously, discussing death and its implications is something that is very important to keep families together and to protect the health and wellbeing of a family. This shows that every person’s attitude towards death is completely different, and unpredictable. This is exactly why it Death is something that should be handled with care, and it is critical to talk about it, and think about it, not just individually, but with family and friends as well.
Some might say that talking about death is something that makes people despondent and can impact their lives negatively. However, this is not considering the fact that people may think about death and not have the courage to broach the topic with friends and family, because in some places talking about death is considered a taboo. My own experience has taught me this. When I was in 6th grade, I thought a lot about death. It was constantly on my mind because I was such a curious child, and wanted to know the beginnings of life. It was inevitable that this process of thought would lead me to ponder the end of life.
I thought a lot about the future, and this led me to the realisation that I would one day die. That everyone around me would suffer the same fate. This was too much for me to take alone, and I kept it bottled up inside my head. Now, looking back at the experience, all it’s proving is that if I had talked about how I felt about death and how afraid I was, all of my sadness could have been avoided. This is why I am now so passionate about this issue, because the lack of acceptance around it had always fascinated me and caused me to think critically about it. If death is an enforcer of diversity, something with no bias or judgement - why can’t we treat it that way? Why do we as a human race seem to fail to talk about the most important things - things that affect each and every one of us?
I didn’t write this piece to describe the meaning of death. I don’t believe that anyone can fully understand death. Death is not something that the human mind can fully comprehend, and it has never been. For centuries, we as a human race have grappled with the consequences and effects of death. But for nought. We have not been able to understand death, as hard as we try. The only way to do so is to go through it, or to face it. However, it is extremely important to understand death, in order to understand its significance on life. Hiding from death will give us nothing - I have realised this while writing this piece. Talking about death allows us to learn lessons, as well as allowing us to share our fears and stresses. Though not all of us have faced death or will be able to face it before it claims us, we must learn from those who have been brave enough to share their experiences with us - and gain insight on what they learnt about life, from death.
WORKS CITED
Dying to Talk. “Death over Dinner - The Yeo Family.” Facebook Watch, Dying to Talk, 13 Feb. 2020, www.facebook.com/Dyingtotalk/videos/795702667592581/.
Oh, Tessa. “Singaporeans More Open to Talking about Death and Care for the Sick: SMU Study.” TODAYonline, 5 Oct. 2019, www.todayonline.com/singapore/singaporeans-more-open-talking-about-death-and-care-sick-smu-study.
Irish Hospice Foundation. “Blog 2: 5 Reasons we don’t want to talk about dying and death”, https://hospicefoundation.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Blog-2_-5-Reasons-we-don%E2%80%99t-want-to-talk-about-dying-and-death.pdf
Why do we cower from death, as if it is the big bad wolf, trying to blow us down? Why do we quake in our boots when it comes close to us? Why do we all fear the prospect of dying? Why do we describe it as a dark, bottomless, chasm, one that we fall into and never come out of? Why do we let these cliches define how we feel about facing death, when we have so much agency over how to react to death and its effects?
Paradoxically, death is a crucially significant part of life. It is a given. Without death, what would it mean to live? The two opposites complement each other bafflingly. Death is the only thing we can know for certain, and we build our lives around it. Retirement plans, medical insurance, even inheritance, are all neatly laid out by us in preparation for death. But death is not a bad thing - and it is not something trivial. We don’t live in fear of death on a day to day basis. We just push it out of our minds temporarily. There are many people who have faced death, not fought it, but faced it, and come out of it so wise and knowledgeable - and shared their stories with us. They’ve shown me that death is a great teacher - one that teaches the art of not wasting time, of using every second we have to live.
Why talk about death?
“We’ve been conditioned to live, not die.” - Irish Hospice Foundation
Death should not be a taboo topic. It should be something we are comfortable sharing our views on. According to TODAY, a newspaper in Singapore, a study that was carried out by the Singapore Management University has shown that, “53 percent of Singaporeans said that they are more comfortable discussing end-of-life matters as well as their own death, a 17 percentage point increase from five years ago.” (TODAY, 2019) This definitely shows one that awareness about death is increasing among Singaporeans. It also shows that people are much more likely to be able to discuss their own deaths with their loved ones.
This is very important as it can influence family dynamics in a positive way and can also reveal to family members things that they may have not known otherwise. It is a very difficult and scary thing to discuss, but can help one to overcome their fear of death. And overcoming one’s fear of death is crucial. Ms Siew Luan states, “The fact is that I have conquered the fear of death, and it has helped me to live a more fulfilled life.” This proves my earlier statement. Death shouldn’t be a taboo topic, because if we don’t talk about death, then what is it that will help us overcome our fear of it? This fear is what paralyses us and doesn’t allow our minds to grapple with the fact that one day, we will all die.
People may not realise it, but talking about death and its consequences is a crucial step to ensuring that the lives of families after someone’s death stay fulfilled and happy. Ms Lynn Chan, who was one of the four members of the Nanyang University of Technology who started a campaign called ‘Dying To Talk’, that encourages families to talk about death over the dinner table. A quote from Ms Lynn Chan, 23, said: "We see a lot of families that have been broken apart because of things that had not been clarified by the person who had (died). Things such as inheritance, or something as simple as how the funeral should be like, for example if it should be a Christian or a Taoist one." (Dying to Talk, Facebook)
Not talking about our deaths can certainly break a family, because when things are left unclear, people begin to make assumptions. These assumptions are what can cause the family to break, and this can be avoided if death had just been discussed. As Mr Yeo says, “At the last moment when you die, you’re not thinking of all those things. Oh, what am I going to do with the house? Oh, what am I going to do with the money I still have in the bank?” (Dying to Talk, Facebook) This suggests that the best course of action for sorting out the small details about your death is best done before it, so that even though you aren’t there to oversee it, everything is in order for your family. This not only makes sense from a practical point of view, but it can also encourage talk about this somewhat precarious subject.
Learning from stories about death
During the Human Library talks, there were two incredible people who shared their stories about facing life threatening illnesses. Both their stories showed me that their experiences left them living life better. That facing death taught them to see life in a different way, and that it improved the qualities of their lives. By facing death, it is meant that these individuals have gone through life threatening experiences that changed their view of their whole lives. They realised that parts of the life they were living weren’t fulfilling - and took action to change their mindset. And not only did they make their own lives richer, but they also opened the eyes of those they shared their stories with.
Ms Melanie Row, a parent at UWCSEA stepped forward to share her story about having Multiple Sclerosis(MS). She had a lot of valuable insight to share after going through MS, and many of these insights were positive. She smiled a lot and was very open while speaking to us, answering all of the questions we had. This showed me how she hadn’t viewed her experience negatively, and has now been able to accept it. When I asked her about how MS changed her mindset, she said, “The things that were critical didn’t seem so critical anymore.” What she meant by this is that having MS made her realise that her priorities had changed.
Ms Row used to be a complete workaholic, and was so focused on her work life, that at times she was neglecting herself. Her experience with MS encouraged her to do more things for herself, which is exactly what she did when she moved to Singapore. She currently doesn’t work and instead has time to visit her childrens’ school carnivals or festivals and dedicate more time to things she does; not for anyone else, but for herself. This is how facing death changed her life. Her experience with death was a teacher for her, one that guided her to improve her life.
Ms Vanessa Wiseman, my English teacher, also shared her story about having cancer. She shared her experience in the form of a story she wrote, titled Memento Mori. When she was asked why it was titled this way, she said that it was because this meant that she wouldn’t be living with Death, but a story about life. And because there were many religious references in Ms Wiseman’s story, she was asked about the role that religion had in her experience. To this she said that, “My religion gave me hope, because it had a story for all eventualities.”
When she was going through this difficult time, it was the stories that really spoke to her. The stories that held her hand - that were her flashlight in the dark. This is critical in understanding the influence of our beliefs on the way we feel death. In this case, Ms Wiseman used her beliefs to get her through the tough times she was going through. The stories were her solace - because they addressed what she was going through without qualms.
This way of thinking is also backed up by Hanna Alkaf, who stated in her talk to Grade Nine students on fourth February 2020, “Humans are wired for stories.” The author of The Weight of Our Sky, which won the Young Adult/High School Literature Category award at the Freeman Book Awards, exclaimed. Having grown up on stories instead of lollies as her treats, she has a lot to say about the role of books in our lives. She stressed the importance of ‘seeing’ ourselves, or someone like us in stories, and this proved to me the importance of stories in our everyday lives. And of course, as Ms Wiseman stressed in her interview - death is part of our personal narrative that we call life.
The importance of learning from stories was strongly stressed to me after listening to Ms Wiseman’s story as well as Ms Hanna Alkaf’s talk. It showed me how we can learn the same lessons from stories that their creators did, without going through what they did. A connection built through stories shared. It is not necessary to live our lives in the dark about death, while not realising its richness. These stories that people share about death can help us to comprehend and understand it. This is why it is so crucial to listen to them. It seems that to appreciate life, we must allow ourselves to understand and think about death - and that will make our experience of life that much more meaningful.
Who do you impact with your voice?
“A small fact: you are going to die… does this worry you?" - Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
You have an impact on so many people around you. When you’re facing death, this is intensified. It makes you realise how many people you really do impact, as well as who your true friends are. It also shows you how people react, making you realise some very valuable things about those who you interact with on a daily basis. This was the case with Ms Melanie Row. Not only did her experience make many of her friends reconsider their own lives, but it also affected her family members in dramatically different ways. Because Ms Row was going through a tough time, it made her friends realise that their lives weren’t going to last forever, and that they were going to have to be more careful with what they choose to do.
Ms Row also mentioned the different ways in which her family members reacted to the news of her having Multiple Sclerosis. The fact that she found out that she had MS while on holiday meant that she had to stay back where she was, while her husband and kids went back to their home. This meant that she was separated from her family for a very long time. Her son was completely devastated. She described him as being very scared, and recalled that when she told her kids that she wasn’t going to go back to work when they moved to Singapore, he told her that he was afraid because he thought that she was sick again. Her daughter, on the other hand, was very interested in how her illness worked, and was inspired by it. She described how her daughter had built a hydraulic hand and won a robotics competition she had participated in, because she saw how difficult it was for Ms Row to move and do basic things, with her right side function completely gone.
These two completely different approaches to Ms Row having MS showed me that it is crucial to discuss death. , and Especially our own death. As I had said previously, discussing death and its implications is something that is very important to keep families together and to protect the health and wellbeing of a family. This shows that every person’s attitude towards death is completely different, and unpredictable. This is exactly why it Death is something that should be handled with care, and it is critical to talk about it, and think about it, not just individually, but with family and friends as well.
Some might say that talking about death is something that makes people despondent and can impact their lives negatively. However, this is not considering the fact that people may think about death and not have the courage to broach the topic with friends and family, because in some places talking about death is considered a taboo. My own experience has taught me this. When I was in 6th grade, I thought a lot about death. It was constantly on my mind because I was such a curious child, and wanted to know the beginnings of life. It was inevitable that this process of thought would lead me to ponder the end of life.
I thought a lot about the future, and this led me to the realisation that I would one day die. That everyone around me would suffer the same fate. This was too much for me to take alone, and I kept it bottled up inside my head. Now, looking back at the experience, all it’s proving is that if I had talked about how I felt about death and how afraid I was, all of my sadness could have been avoided. This is why I am now so passionate about this issue, because the lack of acceptance around it had always fascinated me and caused me to think critically about it. If death is an enforcer of diversity, something with no bias or judgement - why can’t we treat it that way? Why do we as a human race seem to fail to talk about the most important things - things that affect each and every one of us?
I didn’t write this piece to describe the meaning of death. I don’t believe that anyone can fully understand death. Death is not something that the human mind can fully comprehend, and it has never been. For centuries, we as a human race have grappled with the consequences and effects of death. But for nought. We have not been able to understand death, as hard as we try. The only way to do so is to go through it, or to face it. However, it is extremely important to understand death, in order to understand its significance on life. Hiding from death will give us nothing - I have realised this while writing this piece. Talking about death allows us to learn lessons, as well as allowing us to share our fears and stresses. Though not all of us have faced death or will be able to face it before it claims us, we must learn from those who have been brave enough to share their experiences with us - and gain insight on what they learnt about life, from death.
WORKS CITED
Dying to Talk. “Death over Dinner - The Yeo Family.” Facebook Watch, Dying to Talk, 13 Feb. 2020, www.facebook.com/Dyingtotalk/videos/795702667592581/.
Oh, Tessa. “Singaporeans More Open to Talking about Death and Care for the Sick: SMU Study.” TODAYonline, 5 Oct. 2019, www.todayonline.com/singapore/singaporeans-more-open-talking-about-death-and-care-sick-smu-study.
Irish Hospice Foundation. “Blog 2: 5 Reasons we don’t want to talk about dying and death”, https://hospicefoundation.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Blog-2_-5-Reasons-we-don%E2%80%99t-want-to-talk-about-dying-and-death.pdf
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