on death and dying

last night, i dreamt that i have SARS. in my blurry, non-sequential dream world, i remember stepping up to a temperature check station somewhere and discovering that my temperature was 37.7 degrees celsius. i know it is somewhat below when we would usually press the panic button, but i just KNEW i had SARS.. you know what i mean? that certainty that you can have in your dreams about something, only because it is a DREAM and ANYTHING is possible...

i brushed the dream aside (actually i forgot about it until some moments ago) thinking that it must be something to do with my unknown subconscious fear (yes, despite the concern about SARS being around for so long and Singapore already being taken off the list) until i noticed this book "Life Lessons: How our Mortality can Teach us about Life and Living" by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler on my sister's book shelf just now. funny i never noticed it there before or given it much thought. i flipped through it casually and spotted this paragraph...

"We are like a pie: we give a piece to our parents, we give a piece to our loves, we give a piece to our children, and we give a piece to our careers. At the end of life, some people have not saved a piece for themselves- and don’t even know what kind of pie they were. You don't have to wait until you are dying to find out what kind of pie you are."

it was a chapter about living authentically and asking "if you only had a few days left, how would you live your life differently?"

i was struck by how random events like my dream and the book fit together so mysteriously. coincidence? synchronicity?