Celebrities' Goodbye

The long leave from the office that I am taking now is the 4th. The 1st time I took unpaid leave was for about 3 weeks following the end of my 1st maternity leave; the 2nd time was for about 2 months following the end of my 2nd maternity leave. The 3rd unpaid leave that I took was for about 5 weeks when WF was over a year old but not yet 2.

It is perhaps pure coicidence, but it so happened that during or about the time of some of these leave periods, some prominent celebrities passed away. In 1997, it was Princess Diana - the fairytale princess whose grand wedding I so fondly remembered watching over the TV when I was still a young girl. She had died in a road accident, the circumstances of which still remain controversial to some sectors of people. I remember that I felt so sorry for her 2 young sons then.

Some time after Princess Diana, Mother Theresa, the symbol of charity, also passed away. I cannot remember how she had died, but I remember feeling a little (just a teeny weeny bit) upset because she had been such a common and popular 'item' for GP discussions during the JC days. I also imagined the sorrow the beneficiaries of her charity work must have felt at her passing.

During the time when I took leave in 2003, HK actor cum cantopop star Leslie Cheung jumped to his death from atop a major hotel, leaving some suicide note saying that he had been depressed. A lot of speculations ran through the media about his sexual orientation etc.

I was sad when Leslie Cheung departed - I remember many of the Cantonese shows that I had watched during the 1980's and 1990's and how he had starred in these. Also, I think he had done a great job portraying the opera singer's hardships and agonies in the show 霸王别姬 which I watched on the big screen. It was such a pity that he had been driven to his death by unhappiness.

Then, another Cantopop singer Anita Mui followed several months later. The cause of her death was cervical cancer, and some medical practitioners had labelled her death as being a death of neglect (because cervical cancer is supposedly curable and relatively easy to treat, and if she had taken better care of herself, chances were that she might have survived). Her death was especially sad because she had been single and the newspapers carried reports on how her aged mother would now be forced to survive without her beloved youngest daughter. According to the newspapers reports, Anita Mui had also been the typical sacrificial sister of her siblings as she had had to quit school early in order to provide for her family.

Anita Mui's story reminded me about Teresa Teng, the multiple-talent celebrities who had passed away some time in 1997. In her case, the cause of death had been asthma.

Some time later, the former US President Ronald Reagan also died. He was a familiar figure during my school days because judges at our school general knowledge quizes never failed to ask the question: "Who is the US President?".

Just yesterday, I overheard some school girls discussing excitedly that Michael Jackson had died of heart failure. This was a shock to me - although I was no fan of his, he had been such an iconic pop figure all these years since my TKGS days that it was unbelievable that he is already gone. All those talk and skepticism about his infamous 'bleaching' and plastic surgery should probably also be gone with the wind soon.

This is so sad - faces we have grown up with seem to be disappearing one by one. Sigh, it's depressing to think about this. Better not think any more.