Addendum

Other than Dad's Letters, we remember some snippets of deep conversation we had with him during some nights after-dinner and visiting him at the hospital.

One particular conversation stood out during his last stay in hospital. My wife, Siew Yin, on a hunch, had told me to check in on him over lunch. In retrospect, this constituted his last wise words, less than an hour before he suffered his final cardiac event.

After happily sharing with us his latest tips on stock & shares (a nice bull run on Jaya Holdings), he conversed on, then suddenly became reflective & said to me,
"Chong, in Life, you can't have everything."

Just think for a minute. How true is that statement? At a different point in time / stage of Life, one might aspire for the opposite, like pursuing your childhood passions when you're young & full of ambition. I suspect that Dad had realised the sands of time were running out for him. And that he chose to be contented with what he had, to be grateful for family, friends & whatever good memories Life had given him. Why, even the first Emperor of China realised that though he could have everything in his vast Kingdom, he couldn't have Immortality.

Dad also wrote letters to himself. I came across one such letter recently, which spoke of his admiration for the writings of an author, Allan Chalmers entitled "That elusive happiness dividend". Put succinctly, it's all about the 3 grand essentials of happiness :
"Something to do, someone to love, something to hope for."

The way Dad saw it, beyond having one's basic needs fulfilled, pursuing pleasure for its own sake hardly added much to the happiness quotient. To be really happy, one needed to engage Life & actively find meaning.

Simple, yet sublime.