Our U3A Duxton Hill talk, “The last lap: What dying teaches us about living,” will be held on 26th November 2022. Please see below for further details and registration.
The first time I faced the issue of death and dying was when I was a third-year medical student. By the time I finished medical school, I had already come to terms with our mortality. This blog highlights the joy of living. But then, joy is meaningless without despair and no happiness without sorrow. Why should birth be greeted with cheers and death with tears?
Talking about the end of life is still taboo in our culture. Several medical practitioners have alluded to this elephant-in-the-room subject while recounting stories in their professional practice. (At the End of Life (1); Seasons in the Sun; At the End of Life (4): A More Human Approach to Death & Dying; and Ending Notes — Yeh Yeh will Solve this for You – just to name a few).
The title of the talk reminds me of the book, “The Next Lap” (published in 1991). In the Foreword, Goh Chok Tong, the then-prime minister, wrote, “This book represents the hopes of a new generation of Singaporeans and their leaders.” In the same way, we hope you will find the thoughts and insights of Dr. Tan Yew Seng and Associate Professor Thang Leng Leng enlightening and valuable on the home stretch of our life. And there will be no next lap – it will be the final lap, the home stretch.
Death belongs to life, as birth does. The walk is in the raising of the foot as in laying it down.
Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds CCLXVI
Please click here to register
Vince
Dr Vincent Chong is a retired Professor of Radiology at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
