I was watching Ally McBeal on TV while my father lay dying.

I didn't know he was dying. He'd been ill and bedridden for so many years and on that Tuesday night as on other nights, I'd come home from work, gone to say hello to him and then had dinner.

His eyes were shut, as had been the case for several weeks. I didn't know if he could hear me.

I had a shower, checked in on him again, then settled to watch Ally McBeal, which was a popular TV show back in 2000.

Halfway into the programme, my mother called out for me. I could hear the alarm in her voice.

My two maids, who had already gone to bed, also ran to my parents' room.

We hovered around him. My mother was holding him and my maids were crying.

He was breathing heavily and I could feel his heart beating very fast. I remember thinking then that this was strange; I'd always thought that when a person was dying, his heartbeat would melt to a murmur. Instead, his was racing.

I recited aloud the words of his favourite psalm as I held his hand - it was cold. In a minute or so he was gone.

What they say about a person's last gasp of breath is true. About half a minute after he stopped breathing, I was shocked when a strangulated sound suddenly emerged from his throat. It lingered in the air. Then the colour drained from his face and body, just like that, as if someone had switched off a light inside him.

After that night, I never could bear to watch Ally McBeal again.

Death, when it came for my father, was quick.

The process of dying, however, lasted six long years after he had a stroke and could never walk again. Slowly, his other faculties failed him.

How we die and what can be done to ease the suffering of the patient and those around him are now on the national agenda, which is timely given Singapore's ageing population.

Last week, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said that the Government will take a harder look at issues connected with death.

Hospice care will be expanded, nursing homes will be used to care for the dying, and the number of doctors and nurses trained in palliative care will be raised.

The Government will also make it easier for people to make Advance Medical Directives or living wills, and will encourage more dialogue on the topic of death rather than sweep it under the carpet.

I am all for this.

I know there are people who can't talk about death. It's bad luck and unnecessary, they say. Nobody wants to die and when it comes, it comes, so why think about it before then?

Maybe I'm morbid but not a day passes when I don't wonder when I'm going to die and how, or worry about the people I love - the elderly ones, that is - dying.

I think it has to do with having been exposed to death relatively early in my life.

When I was in my mid-20s, someone close to me died. He had, as they say, lived fast, died young and left a beautiful corpse.

At his funeral, as I bent down to kiss his lips, I marvelled at how clean and black and shiny his hair was - the undertakers must have given him a good shampoo, I thought gratefully - and how handsome he still looked.

Other idle thoughts flitted through my mind as I hugged his body: I wondered why his chest felt a bit spongy under his dark blue suit, like it was filled with straw. I noticed that his eye sockets were unnaturally sunken but that his eyelashes were as long and silky as ever. I saw that the tips of his fingers had turned black.

His death had come as a total shock and being so close to it left a big mark on me.

It is not that I am unafraid of dying and death. I am terrified. Neither do I think it a pleasant topic. But after what happened, death was no longer a subject that was anathema. It was something I had to deal with and I knew it was something I could deal with.

I am constantly aware that death can strike any time, on both young and old, that while it may come suddenly as when you see a lorry charging into the path of your car and you know in a flash that that's it, goodbye world, it can also be the final destination of a too-long and too-painful illness.

So is there such a thing as a 'good death' or is that too much of an oxymoron?

Maybe because we have seen death at such close range, my mother and I talk about it freely.

It's not always a comfortable topic, of course. By raising it we are acknowledging that one of us is not going to be around one day, and that's sad.

She has repeatedly told me that she has signed a living will, although she is under the impression that it is an euthanasia pact. She thinks that she can just give the go-ahead to end her life if she is gravely ill.

No, I tell her, a living will means only that doctors can't take extraordinary measures to prolong your life if you are terminally ill or unconscious.

Last week, we got to talking about death again after I observed that a lot of old people carry umbrellas not just to shield themselves from the sun and rain but also as a walking aid.

Growing old, we agreed, was a terrible thing and the best way to die is to do it in one's sleep without having to endure the arduous trial of being sick. But how many people are that lucky?

Is it better to die when you're at the peak of your life and surrounded by people you love or live to a ripe old age but be racked by dementia and living alone in a nursing home? I lean towards the former.

The way I see it, four things are crucial when one is facing death.

First is your state of health which will dictate how much pain you must suffer before you die.

Second is family and friends who will determine how well-cared for and loved you are in your final days.

Third is whether you have money, which will make a difference to how much care you can get and how comfortable your surroundings are in your last days.

Finally there's religion, which most people rely on to face death more calmly.

In my book, having all four will ensure a 'good death'.

My nightmare scenario of my own death is that it comes when I'm really old and penniless and living in a run-down hospice hooked to tubes, and that I die a slow and horrible death after a prolonged period of illness and with no one I love near me.

But who's to know what the future holds.

We all want a good ending. Meanwhile, as someone once said, we should live today as we would have wished to live when we are dying.

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Oct 19, 2008.