It’s no surprise that my last post was on gratitude. We have been so used to living in a culture where we take everything and everyone for granted. I reflected on these thoughts as the news on MH370 began to unfold in the last few weeks. As I eagerly scoured the news for updates on MH370 my heart drifted to a reflective mood as I began thinking about the tragic lives that were now confirmed to be lost.
CNN and other major news networks are now peeling back to the lives of the victims – narrating their stories as depicting them in unremarkable fashion. It made me realise how ordinary these people were, living ordinary lives, and just going through the motion – be it traveling for work, vacationing, visiting a loved one or just returning home. These are all the mundane things that we too do in our own lives – nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. And yet reflecting on those lives lost taught me a great deal of life itself – how precious it is, how fragile it is, and how unappreciative we are of it.
You don’t know what you’ve lost until it’s truly gone
Like my mum’s death which happened a few years ago, seeing the family of the victims lose their loved ones moved me – it brought me back to the time when I lost mum to cancer as well. I am sure looking at the families, they would have felt regret – for not telling their loved ones (whom they lost) how much they loved them, for not being thankful enough to have them in their lives. Sometimes you don’t need words to justify their thoughts; just seeing their faces paints a thousand words.
So what has MH370 taught me? – that life is so precious and at the same time fragile. And also that we, all of us, myself included should never take our lives and those around us for granted. It’s too painful sometimes to use a catastrophe or a tragedy to remind us of the value of life. But sometimes, its through these moments that reality pierces the most.
My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and especially the families during these very trying times.
