Someone I know came down with heart attack but is fine now. Just heard the news. The joke that we're not getting any younger is no longer funny when people whom I know, once young but now either kick the bucket or get hit by illness associated with age.
My first brush with mortality came when I was 15 and running around in shorts. A teacher in school passed away suddenly from a road traffic accident. I remember the scene of my form teacher being comforted by her colleagues in the teachers' common room. Later she came for lesson with blood-shot eyes. Normally boistrous secondary three kids were never so silent in class.
The second time something similar happened was in 2nd-year junior college. This senior of mine in the athletics team met with an accident while on holiday in Kota Tinggi, awaiting his ROD and entry to university. He was someone whom I had a passing admiration, being a successful athlete in school and an officer in the army.
The one that really shook me was when a med school mate, a cross-country runner, collapsed and passed away while out walking. Some time later, another school mate, who played basketball regularly, went down with a raptured cardiac artery. He survived. Those weren't things that happen to fit and healthy youths in their early twenties, with careers in medicine waiting.
Now my joints ache more than usual if I resume exercise after a temporary hiatus. It used to be that I could take months off from rigourous activities, start on it again without having too much aches and pains. Now I have to re-start things gradually. It felt funny in the gym this morning, having to restrain myself from heavy stuff. Well, maybe the back sprain is a good reminder about moderation in all things.
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