DEATH OF PUBLIC FIGURE REAWAKENS EMOTIONS OF OWN REDUCTION
The good feelings one has from the tremendous grief of a public figure can be real. They are in essence like the grief we all experience when a beloved dies. We will have the various phases associated with grief from shock, to yearning, to despair and finally recuperation.
The loss of loved ones will be more impactful given strong attachments we now have with them. The feelings of grief will certainly become more intense and final a longer duration. They will have been an integral part of existence and greater initiatives would be needed to reorganise our lives to fill up the void with these gone.
After learning of the death of the queen , I flipped through my mother’s stamp collection later that day. There were rows right after rows of the queen’s stamps in various colors.
This brought back memories of our mother showing myself her stamps after i was a child. The many stories she informed us of a bygone era, when Singapore was still the colony, flooded back.
Perhaps, the queen’s death come up to my consciousness, that I too mourn the loss of my close connection with my mom as I grew up, the lady grew old, and grew apart.
But surely, those who have passed on would rather we all focus on what they acquired meant to us as well as the good memories they gave us. To truly commemorate them, we should not just mourn their deaths but instead commemorate their lives.
Dr Lim Boon Leng is really a psychiatrist at the Gleneagles Medical Centre.