The Fine Line

Just early last week, a pretty distant uncle of mine was found dead in his house. The cause of death was a heart attack. The really morbid catch is that he was already dead for 8 days before his body was found. When his corpse was found on the bed (he died in his sleep, apparently), it was highly decomposed and his face was unrecognizable - his skull was exposed, the eyeballs were almost gone, the body was infested with maggots and flies. The stench was so pungent that his condo neighbours could detect it; the house had to to be "fumigated" to get rid of the terrible stench, and the smell could not be rid from his belongings.

The last I recollection I have of him is of him being a pretty fine specimen of a human being. Not bad looking, smart, well-groomed, good-hearted, pretty well-built. A guy who was rich enough not to work due to a large family inheritance, and went about doing the things he had a passion for, traveling overseas for mission and evangelistic trips, organizing christmas events for orchard road, being actively involved in Peranakan heritage activities. This guy lived a pretty full life, as far as I know. It is just weird how death can abruptly, mercilessly, and permanently uproot a man from life and the multiple communities he was a part of, into the realm of history, anonymity, and forgotten-ess. It is even weirder how an insidiously accumulated blockage in an artery is the determining line between the often taken-for-granted state of being a full-blooded living human being and the ignominy of being a mangle of decomposing flesh that people can't wait to get rid of.

Carpe diem while we're still in the former state. Cheers to life.