Friday, July 04, 2008

How to Write an Epitaph

I received an email to day to write an epitaph for one of my students who passed away suddenly at aged 24 on 7 June.

What can I say?

She was lovely, full of life, energetic.
Till the day she was admitted to hospital, she was still working on the final version of her last dissertation before graduation.
A fever took her. Some virus killed her.
She expired from multi-organ failure 30 hours from admission.
Life is fragile.
It is not how long we live, it is how we live it.
The success of our lives lies not in paper qualifications, but by how many lives were positively touched by us.
Though she passed through fleetingly, all is not in vain because she lies now in the arms of Jesus.

Hazel, in her short life,
did not merely achieve scholastic success,
but touched many lives; and having done that,
now lies safely in the arms of Jesus.