In the end we were all wrong. It wasn’t the money or the women. It was self esteem and loneliness that took his life.
Jason Chew Tee Kuan passed away on 7 November 2008 at age 33 leaving behind both parents and a brother.
This photo was taken middle of 2007 at a wedding reception of a mutual friend. Chew is seated on the far left.
Did life fail us so miserably that we so intent to end it before its time?
How do we react to the news of a friend who has committed suicide?
Firstly, denial. To the extent of mocking cheerfulness or indifference. Second, anger. So angry that you think the deceased deserved it for actually choosing to die. Thirdly, acceptance. That’s when reality hits home and the sadness crepts in. That’s when you begin to reminisce about the times that you have both shared.
Most of the time there are only two reasons why someone would choose to walk down this path: money or women. And if the problem was money then there’s actually no problem at all. Because whatever money can solve is not a problem. So that leaves us with women. No one (and I stressed) no one in this world is worth us taking our own life for. No one is that good till we can’t live without. Of course we will hurt but we will also heal. If only he had come to me, I would have kicked some sense into him. No one is allowed to die on me not unless it’s a natural death or somewhere near natural. I would have done anything for him. Does he want to chill, does he need a shoulder to cry on, maybe a movie or a pig out? Anything, just being there for him. Because I remembered he was once there for me. Does this make me a bad friend? Are we too caught up in the rat race to care? Are we too self absorbed in our own little world? Or do we have too much pride to give each other a call to show that we care? If only I had done something more when I could….. which is all but a little too little too late….
So this next minute of silence is for you, Chew, our beloved ex-colleague and friend. May you now rest in peace with God by your side in heaven. Forgive me for not being a better friend to you.
Some excerpts from Milan Kundera’s ‘The Joke’ which I was reading and taken down while lazing in Hong Kong back in 2004. A rather difficult book to read but nevertheless some gems to be found.
On friendship:-
Jaroslav mulling over his friendship with Ludrik.
“Neither our estrangement nor our reunion was in my hands. So I hoped that they were in the hands of time. I follow his destiny from afar. I follow it with affection. I can never regard Ludrik as an enemy or a stranger. He is my friend but he is enchanted. And I have a feeling it’s Ludrik who has ordered me to be alone. Because it’s not your enemies who condemn you to solitude, it’s your friends”
On individuality:-
People are slaves to rules. Someone tells them to be this or that and they try so hard that to the day they die they have no idea who they were and who they are. They are nobody and they are nothing.
“A man must have the courage to be himself. It means being what you are, wanting what you want and going after it without a sense of shame.” – Ludrik
On faith:-
Most people deceive themselves with a pair of faiths: they believe in eternal memory and in redressibility. Both are false faiths. In reality the opposite is true: everything will be forgotten and nothing will be redressed. No one will redress the wrongs that have been done, but all wrongs will be forgotten. The task of obtaining redress will be taken over by forgetting.
On God:-
“Everything that happens happens according to God’s will” – Kostka
I was afraid of that eternal anxiety about tomorrow and the coming year, that burdensome anxiety about all tomorrows and all the coming years. I was afraid of this burden and in my mind I heard Jesus’s words:
“Give yourself along with the burden you bear. There is great comfort in giving yourself. But there is God. Give yourself to Him. You will feel lighter.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.
wiloWalls 