i wonder what the children think about death - sarah at least is old enough - and extremely bright - i don't underestimate her - but what they're thinking i wonder - how they imagine death - is it more like sleep to them? just going away somewhere and not coming back? and have they been living in a crisis situation for so long now that this just seems like another crisis instead of the final crisis? they both seem outwardly all right - i guess i'm a little surprised - i thought they would be more upset or that they would not understand at all - but they seem to accept it - much better than i am - ariel is easily emotional and highly empathetic - but then he seems not quite to understand - he's four - sarah on the other hand is highly scientific and aloof in a way the boy isn't, and then she is also very religious - so that on the one hand illness and perhaps also death is conceived in cells - and then they're told all the time that ah kong is now in heaven and she wholeheartedly believes in the hevenlich mede. su-lin says well its not just the children but that that's why christians can accept death - because you believe that there is a happy ending. and i suppose that believing they're really in a better place is just one part of the happy ending, and the other part is that you will see them again when you yourself die. and the thing is whether you believe in the better place or not, you can accept things are better because the actual suffering ends - there wasn't a good way out aside from total recovery - and i saw him - thrashing and gasping and delirious - when i went home in january - and i truly thought - how can anyone allow that to continue please let him die quickly so that he doesn't suffer anymore no one could go on like that i'll back any euthanasia bill from now on. but then when he did pull through i thought - that would have been premature - we can't ever really know what is "hopeless" and when there is "still hope" so how can we decide when? and at least he lived to spend a chinese new year with us, with everyone - for a change i was home for chinese new year - but towards the end, i am told, he kept saying he wanted to die - asking why god doesn't just take him away or didn't take him away earlier on - he was completely helpless and paralysed and very depressed and very weak - so i see - i really do - that it was good for him to be released from it all - and although he went in great pain he also went in peace - he accepted it - in the final two days he kept telling my aunt that he could see mother mary coming to take him away. and i know it's a relief for the people at home who have had to care for him so intensively for the past six month - to be able to rest - and not to have to deal with the reconstruction of the house. i accept the "better" of it, but i haven't got the other half of it - which is what the living find comfort in for themselves - although i wish i did - it's a bit like reaper man - you get what you believe - but if you know what you believe and you believe nothing - that's that.