Nothing in life will prepare you for death. To the surprise of yourself, and those around you, the traffic lights don’t come to a halt, and people will keep strolling down the street to head to work the next day. The world moves on and the sun shines bright, even when it feels like a huge gap has been left behind in your heart.
At approximately one in the morning, on the 27th of July, my dear aunt unexpectedly left this world. I held her hand while she took her last few breaths with the support of the oxygen machine, and as electrodes pulsed through her body to artificially keep her heart pumping. Her heart stopped shortly after midnight.
That was the first time I looked at death in the face, and what came after, was surprising.
The morning after
I woke up with an intense craving for a fat stack of pancakes. Odd you might think, as the previous night I had just witnessed the chaos and solemness of the passing of someone who I spent the last ten years living with. I turned to my keyboard to write a short speech for my aunt, and to my surprise it really did help me process it. I took the day off work, barely keeping it together while I explained to my director what had happened. I put on a bright green, sleeveless silk dress, dabbed my lips with red lipstick, put on a pair of black sandals, and threw an ancient Louis Vuitton bag my aunt had gifted me years back.
I wandered the city looking for a place that served a fat stack of pancakes without the line. I finally settled upon a no-frills-looking diner, a place my aunt would have loved. The pancakes were piping hot, thick, and lavished with berry sauce and whipped cream. For the rest of the day, I wandered around the city, to wherever where my heart took me. Not thinking too much about anything.
I like to believe that my positivity throughout this tragedy had something to do with my aunt’s optimistic spirit, which followed me shortly after her passing. It’s ironic because prior to her passing, I did not value our relationship as much as she did. I complained both internally and to my mother about my aunt’s lack of ambition in life. Where my mother and I shared the value of sacrifice and work ethic, this was an area my aunt was severely deficient in. Her death had made me realize that none of that actually mattered. If I had knew she wasn’t going to make it past her 60th birthday, I would have wholeheartedly supported her decisions. And that brings me to my first lesson, that is…
When you die, no one talks about what you’ve accomplished. They talk about what you’ve done for others.
During her wake, where just a handful of us gathered in a small classroom of the church she attended to celebrate her life, there were only three speeches: One from the Pastor (who knew her for years, and closely), one from a long-time friend who shared the same name as her, and one from a family friend (who’s known our family for 50 years). All three of them described my aunt as “sunshine” in Mandarin. If my aunt was ever unhappy, you would have no idea. She tried to infuse as much optimism as she could into the lives of others. Even with low resources, she would try to fill others’ cups, with her quick tongue and hearty laughter. The memory she leaves behind has nothing to do with her work ethic, rather it’s of her radiating personality, devotion to God, and warm attitude toward the children, who she watched after like her own.
Listening to the pastor talk, I realized for the first time that my aunt was part of a larger community: The Church. She served quietly for a decade and led church groups in her spare time. So although at home we saw one side of her; she had a completely separate life away from us.
Don’t be afraid to indulge in your Desires, regardless of what they may be.
My aunt was by no degree rich, but she spared no expense, especially when it came to treating her friends and family. Being across the globe without the tender watch of her parents and brother, she only had my mother, us, and her friends, Her friends were like family, and the conversations were endless and without boundaries. My aunt was full of lust, and that lust was for life. I don’t think anyone else in the family shared as much desire for living a good life as she did, maybe, with the exception of myself—but even then, I had my own self-inflicted restrictions.
My aunt treated every day as a new opportunity to see something new, to do something new, and to talk about something new. She frequently met up with her friends to drive far beyond the city center to do sightseeing, and of course, take so many photos I don’t know how her shitty phone didn’t run out of storage. She would toss me in the back seat when I was just a toddler, going on these fleeting adventures. Farmer markets, beach escalades, flower viewing, shopping, and fine dining…you name it, my aunt’s done it. My aunt rarely traveled while she was in Vancouver, because there was enough adventure here to keep her going. She capitalized on the mundane and made riches out of her memories spent with others.
She never forbade herself, or the people around her from a vintage wine, a nice piece of clothing, or a more expensive plate. And in some ways, I’ve never been so glad that she did that.
She left with little to her name in this world, but in my heart, I believe the weight of her memories is heavier than kilograms of gold. And so if there’s a lesson to learn from my aunt, is that it’s okay to allow yourself to indulge, and desire is a beautiful, critical part of life.
In terms of personal finance, I’m not saying to live every day like your last, because chances are that you and I have a long road to go. Be discreet and conscious with the greater half of your money, but the other half, spend it on experiences, loved ones, and personal desires that add value to your life. Don’t deny yourself the pleasures of life because these are the things you will look back with fondness and no regret.
Don’t take shortcuts and make it count.
I’ve always held a lot of angst toward the future, ever since I was in high school. I viewed life as a race, in which I had to get to the “finish line” as fast as possible. And this mindset has brought me tremendous pain and anxiety. But the silver lining here is this. I live life like I’m on limited time because it allows me to do more of the vast number of things I want to do. It also gives me more opportunity to explore and discover the things I don’t like, and quickly pivot to something else. Does that make sense? I truly believe if you’re going to do something, you might as well invest the effort into doing it well. Before, it was tremendously tempting to hopscotch between different obligations, and it actually takes discipline to slow down and focus on one thing at a time.
Take your time, and do it well, because, in the end, the quality is what matters. Don’t race through life completing a bunch of “milestones” that you won’t actually be proud of later on. Do you think if Steve Jobs had rushed through the creation of the iPhone, it would have been the societal centerpiece it is today? Nuh uh.
During my writing career, I wrote for over 20 clients globally, in various publications, often pumping out three articles a day. Sadly, I do not have much recollection of the work I did, because it was work I was not necessarily proud of. That’s the result of doing work that’s just measured against the hour and is against our own interests/values.
We all have X amount of years, hours, and minutes left in our life. Don’t take shortcuts, because if you do it right and do it well, you will get more everlasting joy, results, and relief from the work you do. People that rely on shortcuts or luck usually fall into the spiral of imposter syndrome or some other crisis later on.
Life is too short to be worried or unhappy
My final lesson is this.. Ever since my aunt’s passing, I’ve fallen into a serendipitous bubble of happiness. And rest assured, I am not a psychopath. I just think that her spirit is with me all the time now, instead of just in increments when she was alive. I can feel her watching us, her positive radiation shining on me, and different places carrying her unique scent and memory. The only other time I was close to touching death was when I was sick as a teenager. When you overcome near-death experiences, a new person comes out on the other side. The usual challenges of life no longer seem as daunting.
Pain and love are intertwined and one cannot exist with the other. Funnily enough, a few days before my aunt went into a medical coma I was miles away from home, in the middle of the forest at a festival called Shambala. On a mixture of drugs, I suddenly started seeing visions. Visions about what I wanted to do outside of work and images of my family came flooding through my cortex. It brought me to tears. I cried—no, I bawled in the middle of the dancefloor, simultaneously, dancing to the most beautiful music I’ve heard in my entire life. For once in my life I saw pain as equivalent to love.
I never felt as strongly as I do now that complaining and worrying is a waste of time. If you’re unhappy, change the situation you’re in. Most of the time, people don’t move even when they’re desperately unhappy because they are more scared of the consequences of change. But in my experience thus far, never has change led to a negative event in my life; in fact, it’s only got me to the next level.
Life is brighter on this side, even though a massive hole has been left in our collective memory. But I like to think with the remaining time I have in this world, I can try my best to create a life that is truly worth living for. At least that’s what I know she would have wanted the most.
Thank you, SW for your ferocious love for life.
07.27.2023
Secret Prose 
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