The Tanjong Pagar accident has shown that life is short. Latest news in fact revealed that three of the passengers in the BMW M4 only wanted a ride home in the wee hours of the morning.
Wilson, Elvin and Gary were waiting for about half an hour to no avail, and Jonathan then offered to send them to a spot they could more easily hail for a cab. That was their last ride intending to go home.
They will be cremated today. Their loved ones will need the privacy and peace to heal. And my post today is not about them, but the passing of another - Professor Saw Swee Hock. You can read about him in today’s papers by Jessie Lim.
He is a leading Singaporean philanthropist and statistics expert. He died on Tuesday at age 89. It is a reasonably ripe old age. The family has declined to comment on his cause of death.
NUS president Tan Eng Chye: "Professor Saw Swee Hock was a close friend of NUS, and we are profoundly grateful for his contributions to the university in so many ways - as an academic, an educator, a benefactor, and a member of our board of trustees.”
"We are deeply saddened by his passing, and our hearts go out to his family in this difficult time."
Altogether, “Prof Saw donated $30 million to establish the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health in 2011.”
From 1975 to 1991, Prof Saw was appointed NUS President’s Honorary Professor of Statistics in 2010.
His son, Matthew Saw, said that his father “relied on scholarship to pursue his studies.”
He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1956 and Master of Arts degree in 1960 from the University of Malaya in Singapore.”
“In 1963, he obtained his PhD in statistics from the London School of Economics (LSE), where the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre is named after him. During Prof Saw's distinguished academic career, he took up visiting positions in prestigious universities such as Princeton, Stanford, Cambridge and LSE.”
“In recognition of his contributions to Singapore, he received the Public Service Medal at the National Day Awards in 2013.”
Lesson? Mm...
I supposed Prof Saw as a statistician would have some ideas of how one makes his or her life count. He would have plotted many graphs on future contingencies and life expectancies, and planned for emergencies.
Yet, I wonder, how many of us prepare for life in a philosophical manner, that is, to think about it beyond the here and now, beyond the material. I recall a philosopher once remarked that the study of philosophy is not so much about living a good life as it is about dying a good death.
Most of us do not live our life consciously thinking about how we will be remembered when we pass on. If you look at the five young men who died on Saturday, consider whatever dreams they may have had, I trust it was to excel in whatever they do. Striving in the present to make it count was the unavoidable drive.
At that age, they are very much compelled by circumstances such as marriage and career progression to establish a family and/or to pursue that title, promotion and recognition. Not all will make it of course. Not all will achieve what they have planned for. That’s part and parcel.
Like the parable of the sower, but with a little contemporary tweak, some seeds fall by the wayside, missing the mark, others on shallow soil, enamoured by the material creed, and still others choked up by thorns, that is, drowned in their own insatiable appetites.
But that’s all okay, as long as you still have breaths in you to make timely u-turns or amends. Mind you, falls and stumbles do not change the journey. They are in fact part of the journey, and a pivotal part, because it is the humility and wisdom that we have gained that give us the traction and mileage to finish the good race of life.
Anyway, let’s return to Prof Saw who leaves behind his wife, two daughters and a son. He is also blessed with four granddaughters.
His daughter, Dr Saw Seang Mei, also a professor at Duke-NUS Medical School, said that her father is a family man. “He loved inviting his children over for family dinners at his home.” He also “wanted to contribute to the community and benefit it in different ways.”
It can’t be denied that Prof Saw had lived a good life, and died a good death. Not everyone can say the same. Millions have gone before and millions after. Statistically speaking, the odds don’t favour everyone. Not all seeds cast by fate and design fall on good soil. A good life may lead to a bad death, and vice versa.
In this journey, long or short, our choices are our steps, our heart the direction and our hope the mileage for the road. They all come together to form the largely uncharted trajectories of our life, that is, the ups and downs, and the rises and falls. For this is true, how we make our (death)bed, we will have to sleep on it.
In the end, there is something infinitely worth pondering about in the life Prof Saw had lived, and that is, he is a family man. He loved the company of loved ones and friends. For home is still where the heart is, and where it feels, reveals, and heals.
And I believe home is our anchorage, our safe harbour that we return to, after fighting the storms of life. It is a place where we long to be when all the pieces on the chessboard of life are duly kept, and the faces we long to see before we go quietly into the night.
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