Life is short. Life is beautiful.

Three days ago, I was reminded of the reality of how short this life truly is by a 24year-old patient who had just been out with his father, plying their trade as jeepney operators. Due to mechanical problems, they had to bring it in early and forego the rest of the day's trips. It was late afternoon when they finally solved the problem and went out to a machine shop to buy the parts. The father went down to buy the pieces and on coming back to the parked jeep, he was told that his son was out cold sleeping on the floor of their jeepney.

He was unresponsive.

He was rushed to our ER.

He was dead on arrival.

We had no idea what to put on the death certificate. We barely had anything to go on for our final diagnosis. No symptoms. No previous medical illnesses. Nothing.

It seemed like he just fell over and died.

I didn't quite grasp how his father reacted - seemingly unattached, seemingly afraid he'd be blamed, seemingly unbelieveling of what seemed to be another workday afternoon -- most likely in a state of shock. His mother wailed and fell to her knees when she arrived, exclaiming, "Wake up. Wake up, " vigorously shaking her son's body, "You said you'd just be out to buy food. Wake up."

That all got to us. Everybody at the ER felt for this family -- no parent should ever get to bury their child (John Q, beautiful movie!), let alone the prospect of having a very sad Christmas.

I took off the gloves, got my clipboard, and turned to go back to work.

24 years young. Now gone. Life is short.

As I went through my ward chores and charts, I kept thinking of life in general (profound noh?)- what I've done, who I am, how I've been - until I came to sit in front of my open laptop at our office. On the front screen of articles I came to read how Seal described his life as "the perfect life." (Hey, the guy is married to Heidi Klum, how can that not be close to something perfect? Haha.) But he described it as something happy, and having worked hard to get where he is today.

I sat back and looked at my own, and in another of the countless introspective sessions I've had with my own inner psychiatrist, I realized, I'm happy, I'm relatively healthy, I have a nice family behind me, I love the work that I do, and in a relationship where I'm unconditionally loved in return.

Perfection is hard to achieve and likely nobody will ever achieve it, but in all respects, like Seal aptly put it, it is the perfect life.

I didn't know that boy who died that day. There I was hoping he was happy, and that he had his own perfect life -- not the kind we have dreams of, but the kind, that considering everything around us, would be the life of happiness, contentment, shared with those that matter to us.

Life is beautiful but short.

No, life is short but beautiful.