Life beyond Death

A colleague and friend, W, died just before Lunar New Year.  At his funeral last evening, the cavernous hall was completely full.  There must have been more than 500 people there.  There were his relatives, people from his church, the schools he taught at, the university, and many many friends.

As far as I could tell, he was not rich, famous, or politically powerful.  But he was obviously a good man, caring, loving, and well-loved.  He only started working for our university 2 or 3 years ago.  His job was to strengthen our links with secondary schools.  He knew many people in education, and worked energetically tirelessly.  Even after he was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer in September and was given just a few months to live, he kept working while he was undergoing treatment.  In January, he responded enthusiastically when I broached with him a project related to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in schools.  We agreed to meet to discuss it, but we did not get a chance to.

We all miss W.  Looking at the 500 people gathered there, it was hard to accept that he was no longer there, and that we wouldn’t see him again.  We believe there he is with God and that one day we will see him again.  Life is really too capricious and unbearable if he just died and disappeared.  We refuse to believe that.