Another reminder about death

I just found out that another friend in NUS just passed away today because of colon cancer. Few weeks ago, another lady that I know passed away (she was only 40+). I went to her wake and witnessed how strong her family is. She has six children and the youngest is only around 6 years old.
I met her a few times. The last time I saw someone that I have met in her life and then I saw the same person lying in a coffin was my friend's three-month-old baby and my maternal grandma. When I see their faces, the memories just come back to my mind.

How short a life is!

Of course many reflections write about this so many times, yet how hard it is to seriously live as if today is my last day on earth.

When I read a saint's biography, there was a small section on how when they opened this saint's cupboard, he only has a few belongings packed in a tidy way. After I read that section, my mind was like, "Oh man...if I suddenly die, how difficult it is for my landlady to remove tons of my rubbish from my room!" How easy it is to keep saying "tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll do it tomorrow'', or to be angry because of little things as there will be a second day to say sorry. Why don't I choose the humblest way of saying sorry immediately?

I suddenly remember the Air Asia accident end of last year. So sudden, so familiar route, and a familiar person lost her life in that accident. It could have been me.

Today, again I am strongly reminded about how near a death could be, and how I wish I could be like my friend, the lady that passed away recently, and the saint, to be ready whenever God calls me.

Sanctity in the pile of laundry

Good morning!!

I have not been writing for the past three months! To be precise, I kinda stop writing since I started working at childcare. I guess one of the reasons is I am quite worried that I accidentally reveal my students' identity through too many descriptions as I talk about my work. Another reason is this job is physically more tiring so I doze off very fast. Hahaha. Perhaps I should write 7 quick takes again to make sure I write regularly.

Anyway, let's do a quick update.

The reason why the title of this post is sanctity in the pile of laundry is because since I worked as assistant teacher, I feel a little bit irony because even though I spend so much time organizing and cleaning the classroom, I sometimes neglect my own bedroom. For example, I would rather browse about teaching ideas than ironing my clothes.

However, deep in my heart I know that my biggest duties at some moments of the week are: 1) ironing my clothes urgently, 2) vacuuming the floor super urgently 3) exercising!! (I had this mentality that I already did exercise during work time hahaha). Every time I attend my spiritual formation and when the topic touches ''the little things'' or ''care for home'', the first thing that comes to my mind is how messy my room is!

The tips for this is to set a specific day to do laundry as most cleaning websites say. I really feel that really helps. I wash my laundry twice a week, and set Sunday morning to iron my clothes. The priest also told me to set a few minutes every day to put order on something in my room even though there are times when I neglect it. At least in those few minutes I can make the condition a little bit better.

Seriously sometimes, the last thing you wanna do is doing the laundry. However, can you believe that it is precisely through the pile of laundry you can sanctify yourselves too? :)