unexpected in life

Just a few days back, yet another Singaporean succumbed to the capricious, nasty blows of Nature - he was struck dead by a falling tree branch.

I remember it was just recently that a woman got killed by a falling tree branch while two men died in similar circumstances while trekking at Mount Ophir in Malaysia.

During a car journey last weekend, I commented on the tragedy of those incidents (that was before the latest incident occurred). I wondered whether falling branches/trees might now factor into risk assessment in SAF training. After all, many soldiers do spend a fair amount of time in the jungles. Sometimes for an entire day, they could be camping out in the midst of thickly-vegetated areas which have many trees.

It was then that K, who was giving Kenneth and I a lift home, said something that really struck me: 'You know what this means? It means their (the victims') time is up.'

He said it in all solemnity, without any disrespect or being rude. I was struck by his words because i thought they contained a sense of the truth quite simply.

The truth is that those people were unfortunately killed by a falling tree or tree branch. The truth is also that they happened to be at a particular spot at a specific time when a tree branch had to break and strike them where they were. It's all very unexpected, almost incredulous, but things nevertheless occurred that way.

I am not a religious person, but i suppose someone religious would agree with K's words in a religious sense.

To me, I regard K's words in a somewhat philosophical way. There comes a point in life when our time would be up; indeed, it's only a matter of when.

But when that time comes, i like to think that many of us would have had time to be mentally prepared, if not already resigned to what is the inevitability of Life. But for those whose life had come to an abrupt stop, it is exactly because they had passed on ahead of their time that it seemed abtly, if cruelly, true that their time is up - too soon, too unexpectedly, with no sense of forewarning to the loved ones left behind.