CHEEJ'S BOXES OF STUFF
Wednesday, December 01, 2004

life is just so unfair..

i think i should elaborate, yes?

u see, today i went with some pri 6 classmates to see our old teacher Mrs Kow. she's in sgh now..ever since 2001 she'd been diagnosed with lung cancer..at first, it had looked like it was in remission, but now she's back in hospital again, and we're have no idea of her condition..all we know is its probably worse now..she has a tumour in her brain now..she cant remember all of our names..only faces..and she's lost so much weight..basically, she's deteriorated so much since we last saw her..

she realli doesnt deserve to have such a fate befall her. i know, who am i to judge that? but honestly, she's a wonderful person who has done so much good for the people in her life..it seems unfair to her that she is stricken with such a disease.

i remember what a great teacher she was. she taught me from pri 4 to pri 6, and even after 4 years in another school, i still regard her as the best teacher i have ever had. she was a teacher who would go the extra mile to help her students, the kind that would give all her effort and energy to helping her students become better people. although she was assigned to teach my class english and maths, what she taught us was more than just phonics and grammar, addition and subtraction. she taught us to be people, people who had values, who were of virtue, who could live life honestly and meaningfully. she was part of a golden generation of teachers who taught in every sense of the word.

today, she is bed-ridden. much thinner than she was in 2001, with a cap on her head to cover up the effects of (probably) chemotherapy. yet, despite all the hardships that she's had to go through in the last 4 years, despite all the physical changes that we all can see, she is very much the same person. the energy and vigour that i see in her mirrors what was present in her actions almost half a decade ago. although the tumour in her brain has reduced her ability to remember names and cut short her vocabulary, the light in her eyes as we enter the ward shines more brightly than ever. i know, its cliched and realli melodramatic, the way i have just described it, but i simply cannot find a better way to put across that to u. even though it pains me to see her struggle to form sentences and put across her ideas, its also heartening to see that, inside, she is every bit the person she was 4 years ago.

everyone i know from the class of 6A 2000 agree that this shldnt happen, that she deserves much better in life than what she has now. such is the huge impact that she has made on our lives. yet, things like these do happen, and we have no choice but to go along with what comes along. in my 4 years in acs, i have been told that God has a plan for all of us..i may not know what i believe in terms of my religion, but in Mrs Kow's case, God definitely has a plan for her. that much i do believe.

to me, it is obvious that she believes that too. she is completely at peace with her condition, and i have to respect that. even with her current ailment, she continues to affect us and change us for the better.

to all my friends: pls keep her in your prayers.
to Mrs Kow: i know u probably will never read this, but all of us in 6A love u, and all of us hope, with all our hearts, that u will ride through the storm.



Cheong Chee Jun scribbled at 6:29 PM