Yesterday, January 2, 2006 at 7:45 PM, my mother’s friend Maria passed away at Princess Margaret hospital due to an ovarian cancer… It had spread all over her body that by the time she was admitted to a hospital last couple of weeks ago, her health had deteriorated rapidly already.

I had heard of her yet only had one occasion to visit her when she was being transferred from Toronto General to Princess Margaret last week. Even then she was quite witty and calm and caring her only son dearly. Speaking German, English and Korean fluently, it seems she had travelled a lot and had lead an interesting life. My few hours of acquittance could never do justice; I can only feign ignorance if someone asks if I had known her.

With her son, who had flown from England to be with his mother at her last moment, she spent few nights at the Princess Margaret, her fear and pain showing through her bony body, agonizing with fluid in her lungs that chocked her every moment as she breathed.

I still remember her being very happy as she entered the Princess Margaret hospital’s 16th floor…rooms for people in their last moment. It was very well furnished–wooden floor with stereo that allowed her to listen to classical music…with large windows facing a leafless garden on 15th floor opposite side, she signed a relief saying she had everything she needed…except one.

I still don’t know what that ‘one’ is… My mother assumes its her health…I thought it was her estranged husband….but then… she didn’t answer her son’s query so I never found out.

That was the week before Christmas, on her 57/8th birthday.

Yesterday, she was lying down…unable to remain conscious… In a room only with her son, she quietly passed away, without pain, as her four friends, her son’s friend and myself waited outside, giving a moment of privacy for the mother and son.

There are many stories surrounding her last days but not all of them pleasant. I do not know her enough to regret or miss her. Yet as one of the few who witnessed her passing, it indeed saddens me that she had to die in such an early age…and I do regret I did not get to know her better while she was alive.

With each person leaving this world, I am sure there are lots of stories untold. Those stories, which are the very lives of dearly parted, I can’t help but feel ignorant. For I do not know those stories; for I do not know the lives.

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