Memento Mori (Remember you must die)

Remember your mortality. Remember you must die someday.

On that silent night, when I rushed back to the ICU, hustled to dad's bed after leaving just two hours earlier for some rest, in one glance, despite the signals on the machines, I knew in my heart that he was no longer around. He did not look the same as I left him two hours ago.

 He was neither in that hospital bed which he lied for twelve days, nor was he in the body which he had lived for 63 years. I was startled at how absent it felt. His soul had departed this world and away from any pain he was in. The body lying there was so foreign and strange to me. His spirit was simply no longer in that ICU, and I almost can't recognize the spiritless body which he left behind.

But I now know that there's a heaven, a better place beyond the reach of the living, that eternally houses the kind loving soul of my father. And I know for certain that one day we will reunite. So I no longer fear death. Because my dad has lead the way. He has shown me that it's only a passage, a process to undertake in order to get to heaven. I no longer fear about the unknown, because he is already there. And when the day comes for me, I'll be fine and taken cared of, because he'll be already there waiting for me with open arms and a big teasing smile on his face, tenderly patting my head: "沒膽的小老虎! 動作這麼慢啊~ 呵呵~"


* Photography by Walter Schels "Life Before Death"  ______________________________________
The photo of the baby was one of the photos from a series taken when the subject was still alive and soon after his/her death. It was shown in over-sized black and white prints, placed right next each other in an exhibition in Roppongi 2010. At first look, it's hard to know what the two photos mean, because the photo on the right side all look as if all the subjects were just asleep. Its message was so simple yet powerful, that "Death does not discriminate. Remember you too must die". A vivid reminder of our mortality and frailty.