I was flicking through today’s copy of The Star newspaper this evening when I came across this item about the joint deaths of a philanthropist and his wife in a car accident near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport last Tuesday (24 Oct 2006).
They were on the way to the airport with their four children and three friends when a burst tyre caused the four-wheel drive vehicle to flip over several times. The children and friends survived the accident.
Sadly, this accident adds to a long list of double tragedies where both husband and wife died and left their children to fend for themselves.
And is normally the case, his children are still minors. The eldest is 14 while the youngest is only eight.
They will need some elders in the family to see them through the difficulty of the next few years. At such young ages, losing a parent is bad enough but to lose both together will be an unrecoverable blow.
I hope as a businessman, he had taken steps while still alive to ensure the successful transition of his business. As a business grows, it becomes imperative that there should be a business continuity plan or otherwise, there will be a big question mark about the future of the business. There is also the uncertainty that the staff will face. Is there anyone competent enough to continue running the show in the absence of both husband and wife?
Moreover, there is the estate of the children’s deceased parents to settle. Hopefully, their father would already have created a Trust Fund for them or at the very least, had bought some insurance policies, written a Will to smoothen the distribution process and identified legal guardians for the children.
The man may have been a philanthropist to the community while still alive but he would have been a greater philanthropist if he had also taken the effort to care for his family should he no longer be around. I really hope he has…