Autumn Days

This year has flown by exceptionally fast. I wonder how many felt this is so.

Whatsapp messages often contain messages to make the best of each day as it comes, as we don’t know what lies in store for us. Will we even see the light of the next day?

One of my closest classmates and friend has just lost her spouse with whom she has shared many decades of life. When he could no longer drive a car, I was told that both of them would either catch the train or bus just to go to the next town for lunch. When I heard that, I thought how wonderful it was to have such a loving relationship.

Now she is alone. This will be a very difficult time for her, having to adjust to a single life amidst the emotional loss and grief.

Life is a cycle. We start off single, meet our partner and become a couple, raise a family and when they go off to make their own way in life, we become a couple once more until one of us leaves this world and we are single once more.

It would seem that women outlive the men, going by what I see. Many of my friends are widows. Perhaps men are genetically programmed to live shorter lives than women. However, in my family this isn’t true. The women in my family pre-decease the men. My mum, both my grandmas and two of my sisters departed long ago.

My contemporaries and I are now in our autumn years, enjoying whatever life span is left. We try to meet up as often as we can, fully aware that our days are numbered. I’m blessed to have friends in both parts of the country and we meet over lunches. Another of my classmates will be flying in next month to escape the cold winter of the UK and our core group shall meet again at her favorite restaurant in the capital city.

Meanwhile, I enjoy my days, tending to the little plants now growing on my balcony,

two rounds of golf per week,

reading and writing apart from a bit of cooking. Every now and then I take a flight to visit my grandchildren.

Life is good in the Autumn.

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Quo vadis?

There is far too much violence in the world today. Each day we read in the news of massacres, murders committed during robberies, random shootings into crowds, deliberate mowing down of pedestrians and bullying perpetrated by students, which more often than not, ended in the death of the victims.

Two recent cases of fatal bullying within one month, led to an outpouring of grief and anger. The bullies have been arrested and are now facing murder charges which carry the mandatory death penalty. These bullies are teenagers and also in the twenty something age group.

Why is there so much anger and venomous hatred? The two victims were their schoolmates/university mates and were known to be non-aggressive and well-liked by their friends.

Why did the bullies pick on the vulnerable to beat and torture them to the extent that it could only lead to death? It has been opined that herd mentality drives the bullies to be more vicious and to revel in their power over the hapless victim.  It could be the sadistic and cruel streak that surfaces when they see their victim writhing in agony. 

Brutality seems to be the order of the day. Road rage, abusive adults who abuse their young charges mercilessly and beat them to death. Whatever is the world coming to? 

Have we come to the End Days? Where are we going? Will we be like the lemmings?

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A Toast To My Friends Whom I Value Dearly

From right, Nary, Faridah, Datuk Josie & I used to golf together

Two years ago, I wrote about the importance of having friends and keeping them in our lives. Friendships nurture us in many ways and contribute to our well-being.

My former Brinsford colleagues celebrate my 72nd birthday

Roslyn (center) from Australia visited in 2010. Nest to her is Grace Gan, a former colleague

With some of my class of '59 classmates in Kuala Lumpur

Some friends come and go, depending on the stage of life we’re at. Sometimes we outgrow the friendships that we have, sometimes we fall out and never get back together again, sometimes we lose friends because of death.

Celebrating Nary's birthday last year

Lunching at Mother India with Dr. Shelley

 While these are happening, we also make new friends.  New people come into our lives, whether at work, or through social networking or even through social media. So, we may have many Facebook friends. We see them only on Facebook as they are from different parts of the world and it is highly unlikely that we will meet in person.

Some of these friends are Joo Randal, Bobby Brooks, Stacey Adam, Darrel Tenter, Scott Allan, Ndeye Labadens, Gregory EK Goh,  Mimi Emmanuel, Gertrude Tai and many more.

My spouse standing next to Andrew, a good friend & my classmate Siew Khim

Despite the distance and different time zones, it is possible to build friendships with people we don’t know as Facebook brings many people together. Some of my former students whom I taught in the early ‘70s managed to locate me through FB and we had a great reunion in 2015 as they had returned from far flung places across the globe. 

With Former La Sallian Students of early '70s

 I would like to share pictures of my friends, former colleagues and former students here.

With Julia (standing) a former student who became Principal of La Salle School & Su Cheng

With my sister Doris & friends who paid a courtesy call to our past SWEPA president who is now the President of the Malaysia Friendship And trade Center Taipeh

With Datuk Adeline Leong, President of the Malaysia Friendship And Trade Center Taipeh

With some of my class '59 classmates in Kuala Lumpur

With Faridah & Jude

On the Left is Prof. Danny Wong, my former student from La Salle

Jennifer, Myself & Datin Yu Ling, former colleagues at La Salle

With Datin Yu Ling & Datin Carol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Power Of Prayer

God is good and He is good all the time. He answers prayers so long as we are in a close relationship with him.  Last month when my sister was to join me for a visit to Taipeh, two things happened.

She lives in Kuala Lumpur while I live across the South China Sea. Just as I was going to fetch her from the airport, she texted that she had missed her flight!  My heart sank! We were to fly out to Taipeh very early the next morning. Would she be able to get here in time?

Apparently, the airlines had changed the boarding gate. She wasn’t aware of this and she said she never heard any announcement either.

Anyway, her luggage had been off loaded. She asked for the next flight but all flights were fully booked! She could wait on standby but because that was a long weekend ( Labor Day weekend ), chances of anyone getting off a flight were dim. 

She prayed to God to give her a flight to my place. I also prayed for her to come in so that we could go together to Taipeh. Eventually, she found a flight which had only ONE seat left, so she grabbed that seat. 

Then she looked for her luggage and made her way to the other terminal from where the flight would take off. Praise the Lord my sister got in after 11 p.m. that night. By the time we got home it was past midnight. 

Our flight was at 6:10 a.m. so we had to be at the airport by 4 a.m. It was a sleepless night for us as we were afraid that we would not be able to wake up in time.

The next morning, we arrived at the airport, checked in our luggage and proceeded to clear Immigration so that we could board our flight.

Horror of horrors!! The immigration officer declared that my sister could not leave the state. Why? 

We were shocked! She had forgotten to bring along the slip of paper given by Immigration when she entered the state. All non-residents were given a slip of paper upon entry and had to relinquish it on departure.

So we asked what we had to do in order to board our flight? The immigration officer said we had to make a police report. I panicked! We would never get to a police station in time to make a report as the flight was due to take off within half an hour. 

Where’s the police station, we asked? He said there was a police base at the other end of the building. So, we took to our heels and ran all the way to the other end of the building, praying all the while to our Lord.

When we reached the end of the building, it was dark! The Customs office was locked and in darkness.  It was 5:30 a.m. so they wouldn’t be on duty. Then I saw the office which had the word “Police” above the door! But the office was in darkness!!

Desperate, I banged on the door and shook the handles.

“Anyone in there? Hello, hello, anyone in there?” 

Then, praise the Lord, a sleepy policeman came to the door and opened it.  We rushed in and said we needed to make a police report so that we could catch our flight.

He calmly asked us, “What time is your flight?”

We told him. We prayed to God to let us have the police report in time so that we could catch our flight.

The police officer was very kind and he rushed the report for us. We thanked him and ran all the way back to the Immigration counter. 

My sister submitted the report and was allowed to go through.  We found all the ladies in our group waiting for us. They told us that they were waiting for us to arrive before boarding. They were confident we would be able to make the flight. Indeed, we did, by the skin of our teeth as everyone else had already boarded. 

God is so good! He had answered our prayers.   

So long as we have a close relationship with God, so long as we have Him in our lives and communicate with Him regularly through prayer, He will never fail us. Without His Hand in waking up the police officer, getting him to quickly write the report for us, we would never have made the flight! 

Thank you Lord, thank you, for making our trip possible. This was a very precious week for my sister and I as we live so far away from each other and this trip was meant for us to have time together.

My sister and I

Entrance of Jui Fen Old Street

Waiting for the train to Hua Lian

Waiting for our coach to take us back to the hotel

 Both of us will never forget this trip and how eventful it was for my sister, first missing her plane and then, nearly couldn’t board for our flight to Taipeh.

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