Before it's too late

WTT has started her Christmas shopping - that I learnt through her facebook's status updates.

The title of the post has nothing to do with last minute Christmas shopping, and rest assured, nothing indicative to the picture of Dr M here too.

Dr M was here recently. (Yes, he looked tired and weak. I had wished to have some up, personal and close pictures of him) That is probably the reason that I use his picture. I do feel a tinge of sadness looking at this picture, just like the man in the picture showing that tinge of sadness.

A young journalist here asked, "Is Dr M someone you admire? Do you think he is a good leader?" I have no answer to his two questions, but I gave this answer, "He is not a good mentor. He did not groom a successor."

Probably, Dr M gives the best answer. Quoting from his Prologue in his own book on selected letters to world leaders,

Whether I was a good or a bad Prime Minister is, of course, not for me to say. When I am dead and gone, the judgment would be more accurate. Since I will not be around then, it would be quite meaningless to me. My children and friends would be the ones to savour the truth or bear the pain of whatever I am condemned for.

Aside the last minute Christmas shopping, is not the title "Before it's too late" an appropriate theme for us to consider at Christmastime when everyone is singing of that silent night, when joy broke through to an anguished world, when angels announced to the shepherds, "There is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior," a Redeemer? Find our way out of the tragedies, the troubles, the difficulties and the infirmities of life before it is too late.