Life is so fragile

I like to read the obituary section of the newspaper. It is a reminder that our life on earth is but a short sojourn. I like to read what people say about their loved ones who have gone before them.

Several years ago, while I was reading the newspaper and munching my breakfast I suddenly saw a very familiar face in the obituary section.

It’s the face of Mdm Lee. I remember this loving mother who had four beautiful children.

What had happened to her?

I found out about the tragedy which took away the life of this lady the next day. Tears flowed down my cheeks as I read the newspaper account of what happened to this lady.

The family was travelling to Malaysia in their family car. They decided to stop the car at the road shoulder of the highway to check if they have brought all their passports. Mdm. Lee went out of the car to look for their passports in the booth.

A van suddenly lost its control and crashed right into the back of the family car. Mdm. Lee was sandwiched between the two vehicles. She was still alive when her husband came out to help her. Her husband held on to her hand while she uttered her last word, telling him to take care of their children.

I was moved to attend the funeral wake. Nothing I said could comfort the husband and these four children whose mother was taken away so suddenly.

I could almost hear the laughter even as I imagine the children talking excitedly about their holiday trip to Malaysia. Then I felt the cold chill running down my spine as I imagined the painful sight of the husband holding helplessly to his wife. Their children were still too shock to realize that their mother would soon be taken away by the tragic accident which came like a bolt in the sky.

What a tragedy? Life is just so unpredictable and so fragile.

Indeed the bible is right. We really do not know what will happen tomorrow. Our life is really like a vapor that appeared for little while and then vanishes away. Whether we live to do this or that all depends entirely upon the mercy of our almighty God, our Creator.

Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
Whereas ye know not what [shall be] on the morrow. For what [is] your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
For that ye [ought] to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
                                                                                                                                                           James 4: 13-15