COMMENT | Longevity - a blessing yet a burden

COMMENT | When I die what will I leave behind? A tombstone in a mass graveyard. An urn shelved in a columbarium. A living memory for those who may forget who I was?

Those thoughts come to mind when loved ones and friends die - some short of the average life expectancy of 76 (male) and 78 (female).

My mother-in-law broke the statistical trend. She died at 90. Sad but, perhaps, not a tragedy given her age.

The paradox of her longevity hit me when I visited her last month in a geriatric ward and an aged care home in Petaling Jaya.

Her longevity was a blessing. She was cognitively sound, relatively independent, travelled widely, and her relish for good food was relentless. She lived well.