Terminally ill cancer patient Carolyn Too throws a party to celebrate love and life with her closest friends.
Ms Carolyn Too: "When I was told I only had six months, I said: ‘Okay, fine. Let’s make the best of the six months.’ I refuse to mope about it."Pain, however, does – a sharp stabbing pain from cancer tumours in her abdomen.
For someone facing Death’s dark gaze, the former business development manager is remarkably cheerful, chirpy even. The idea came up during a conversation with Ms Shannon Sim, 33, her medical social worker from HCA Hospice Singapore, a charity that provides support to the terminally ill. “I needed to consider the feelings of my traditional Chinese family,” says the eldest of three children of a taxi driver and a sales promoter.“I said: ‘Let’s not call it a living funeral. Let’s call it a celebration of life. There are so many reasons for me to celebrate my life. I’m still here, I can still eat when some people can’t even swallow, I have so many friends who are so concerned about me. These are the little things that I should be so happy about,” says Ms Too.
Deciding whom to invite was the toughest, she says. That is because the extrovert has a lot of friends. Rows of caps and hats in different colours line one wall. “I started the collection when I began chemotherapy,” says Ms Too. On another wall hangs a poster, its message, “Live every moment, laugh every day, love beyond words”, highlighted to great effect under a pair of spotlights.
The senior business analytics manager says: “I was so shocked when I found out about her diagnosis. She is sunshine. Why must something like this happen to such a good person?” The next order of business is karaoke. The first song, belted out by logistics specialist Timothy Chow, 51, is Hong Kong singer Hacken Lee’s Cantonese hit Red Sun.If life terrifies you and you no longer feel like livingFriends singing during the Living Funerals: A Celebration of Life event for Ms Carolyn Too. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
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