In the past week, I have been closing files or handling the closed files. We have a carer ringing in yesterday says the recipient passed away. It’s just a 10 year old little boy, never got a chance to really start his life before being gone forever.

This is so sad, but it’s not as sad as the death that I have personally encountered in the past 4 years. But here the major focus is carers not recipients, and as we just work behind in an office, not really facing the dying reality everyday happens in a real life, everything doesn’t seem too hard to take.

I used to experience one of the residents died during the course I gave her a daily nursing care. She wasn’t like she usually acted before, but I don’t have any experience about a dying people. I realised she had dead until 10 minutes after I started, which was shocking because it gave you a kind of feeling that it might be me caused her death. I couldn’t have my lunch on that day, but other experienced nurses took it easily. After a short expression by saying “sorry” or how sad they felt, nothing more brought over one day after. That was it.

I also have experience of holding an old dying lady’s hand because she said she was frightened and felt so cold and dark. Half hour later she passed away. We all knew it was her turn this time before she actually died. It’s not hard to tell. If someone loses his/her appetite and doesn’t eat at all for more than three days, s/he would die within a week. This sounds crazy, but it never failed to my best knowledge or what I have experienced.

I used to feel horrible when I was in China hearing the story that some Chinese overseas students in Japan had to make a living by carrying dead people on the back to transfer them from upstairs to outside. For Chinese, it is an awful occupation because touching the dead or doing anything relating to death means bad luck and just gives us such awful taste in our mouths. I use to be one of those Chinese who has traditional point of view about death, but I have changed since I involved in a caring job. Now I am so grateful for whatever I have gone through in that kind of settings where living and dying are equally occupying my mind and it makes me think, feel and touch the destiny of all of us, and helps me to understand better about our mission for this life.