RETURNING TO SCHOOL AND CATCHING UP
A few days after the funeral, Shannon returned to school. Her teachers gave her extra consultation slots and her friends passed along the notes they took for her, complete with little tips and hacks that were shared in class.
“It was very comforting to see that everything and everyone was still the same. Nothing much changed,” Shannon told CNA. She also used the June holidays to catch up with her work, going through recorded lectures and finishing tutorials she had missed.
Shannon was “pretty self-motivated” after coming back to school, said Ms Ang Shu Zhen, 35, one of her form teachers.
“She just picked herself up and said ok I’m going to start, and I’m going to aim to clear topic by topic, whatever I missed,” she added.
Shannon also sought out her tutors proactively to ask them about what she missed out on, said Ms Ang. “In general, she knew what needed to be done. She’s mature and she came back and did most of the work herself.”
Coming back to school unintentionally served as a distraction from grief, Shannon said, adding that she had only talked about her sister’s accident at length in preparation for Friday’s interviews with the media, which has helped her process her emotions a bit more.
Her friends also checked in on her after her return. “But because I didn’t even process my own feelings yet, so I didn’t really have a proper reply to give them other than ‘I’m ok’,” Shannon said, adding that she still finds it difficult to talk about the accident.
Things at home are as per usual. “I think my mum always says this, life goes on. I think she’s very strong,” said the 18-year-old.
Her sister’s accident also gave her some new perspective, prompting her to work even harder for her A-Levels. She collected her results on Friday, and aims to study computer science at university and hopes to do well enough to get into her ideal course at Nanyang Technological University.
“The main thing that I realised is that death is very close to us. I think that really made me more motivated to live life to the fullest. I don’t want to regret anything,” she added.
“And (I learned) to cherish whatever I have now. Because you never know, you can just suddenly get into an accident and pass away.”
Growing up, Shannon and her sister were close, but they drifted a bit as they grew older and went to different schools with different circles of friends.
Many of her preferences, like her taste in music, are inherited from her sister, Shannon said, recalling when the two would learn K-pop dances together in front of a big mirror in the living room at home. “Because she’s four years older than me, so it’s like she goes through life before me.”
One of her favourite memories with her sister is when the latter would come to her for advice. “We would sit on her bed, and she would tell me her problems. And she would ask me, is it her fault or is it her friend’s fault, how I would advise her,” she said.
“I think it was really nice that she didn’t think of me as a clueless little sister.”
Since her sister had been overseas for a few months before the accident took place, Shannon felt a bit distant from her and had not interacted with her as much as she usually would have.
Tearing up again, she said: “So even until after the accident, it still feels like that. She’s still in New Zealand.”