In Memory of Wong Jia Ming

Wong Jia Ming
(30.07.1991 - 21.07.2008)

Haiku for Jia Ming

Moments ago you were here
Now you are no more
Emptiness reigns.

My student passed away on Monday night at about 11 something p.m. It is sad because i just visited him at 6 p.m. in the general hospital i.c.u ward and in a way spoken to him....He died 9 days short of turning 17. You see...he would be celebrating his 17th birthday next Wednesday...
He was in a coma for 5 days after the fatal accident he encountered on his way back home on last Wednesday evening. I cried my eyes swollen while visiting him and when i got to know he had passed on.
You see, for the past 7 months, i have been putting a tick in the students' attendance book for my class and i had 30 students...and then, when he was in a coma, i put an circled 's' to indicate he is sick...and now....i don't know what to put there....i had entered his name until September....and now...i just have to put a straight line there....like the straight line on the screen monitoring his heart beat....signifying that he is gone...now...i only have 29 students....
I still couldn't believe how events evolved so unbelievably fast. It was only last Wednesday that i chided him in class....He was walking towards his seat when a piece of paper fell off the wall and he nearly stepped on it...He didn't pick it up...and when his fren asked him to, he said 'wo pu tze tau' or i don't know. I chided him saying that next time, if he step on a pool of shit, he would stil say the same thing...the second time i talk to him was when he was talking to Lin, Ravi and Pn Noor Fauziah, the PK1. He said he didn't want to go to Duma... so i playfully said that if Gan Shai Chin were to go, he would surely go...He said he was not feeling well and that he would go to the clinic after school. It was on the way back that he met with an accident. A motorbike overtook him from his left and he tried to avoid it by swerving to the right and he collided head on with an oncoming car. His suffered from a fractured skull and he never regain consciousness after that. Doctor said even if he recovered, he might be blind. Then, the news was he was brain dead and depended on the machine to support him.
The evening i visited him, he looked so fragile on the big hospital bed. Tubes were everywhere...in him and he was hooked up to the monitoring machine. It sadden me to see that. The machine beeped at a constant 78 the whole time and stopped for 1 minute before resuming its constant beat again. When i finally touched his hand and said my goodbye to him, his heart beat went up to 80...maybe it was just a coincidence...or maybe he actually heard me and indicated it in such a way.....i would like to think that he actually acknowledging me..even though others may say it was just a normal tempo of the machine.
The next morning, Fatin came to tell me the news and Fong confirmed it. She said Jia Ming's aunt called to inform his passing. It broke our hearts because he was an intelligent boy...one of the good ones....a potential A student. His classmates said that he was unusually happy in class on the day he met with the accident.
I actually prayed for him the night he was gone. I prayed that God would have mercy on him and his family. That God would end his and their suffering - either by returning him to his family or take him and end his suffering and not leave him in limbo for long. I guess...God did answer my prayer...not the way i really wanted it...but..He works his grace in his own way...the way He thinks is best....
May he rest in peace now...and may his friends will finally let him go and pray for him. Life will have to go on now...for the living...and i hope that Gan will be strong after he is gone. he had been her boyfriend since they were in Form 2 and i really hope that she will shoulder through this tough time in her life. Today, my class students would go to say their final farewell before his funeral....a promising future is gone now...