For Tham Yoo Yee, it came in the form of a cancer diagnosis in 2009.
Reeling from the shock, she turned to painting to help her deal with her distress, apart from leaning on her family and pet cats.
For as long as she can remember, Tham has loved art and painting, using the act of drawing on a blank canvas as an outlet to express herself.
However, she never made a living out of painting despite being armed with a diploma in fine art from the Kuala Lumpur College of Art. Instead, she pursued a career in writing.
“I feel that when I’m painting, I am free and can choose to paint whatever my heart fancies, but if I use it to make a living I might not have as much freedom anymore.”
With an interest in sports journalism, the 49-year-old wrote for the sports sections of various newspapers for years, even spending a year freelancing across Europe as a Formula One journalist.
It was also during this time that she began a serious relationship with a Slovenian man. However, it was not to last as he passed away just months after they met.
The pain nudged Tham to turn to painting as a means to heal from her grief. She painted mostly flowers and sceneries then, which she said calmed her.
A year later, she learned she had ovarian cancer. “When you are at the lowest point in your life, you try to find happiness in the smallest things,” Tham told FMT.
“At the time when I felt the closest to death, what I painted was mostly self-portraits, as well as my pet cats at that time, which was one of the most important things to me.”
Fortunately, after a succession of surgeries and chemotherapy, Tham was pronounced cancer free.
When GMBB launched Project 108 in 2018, a project featuring the works of 108 local artists, Tham saw it as an opportunity to do something for her recently-passed pet cat Jimmy and the stray community as a whole.
Her collection was named “Cat @ kaki lima”. Her paintings, featuring cats on typical Malaysian walkways, or kaki lima in Malay, were intended to remind people that they share a space with stray animals and to show compassion towards these innocent creatures.
“I like to draw the cats on colourful Peranakan-style tiles like those that you find in Melaka or Georgetown, as I find the image of the strays sleeping on them very Malaysian,” Tham said.
The proceeds from selling her postcards at the event were donated to an Ipoh-based cat shelter named Love Cats Home, which houses rescued stray cats awaiting adoption.
Pay a visit to Tham’s lot in GMBB and you’ll find a gallery of her artworks, along with many pictures of cats waiting for their forever homes.
“My latest series is called the ’18 Sleeping Styles of Cats’, which features my two cats Tiger and Didi, along with my past pet cats, in various sleeping positions that I find amusing,” Tham said.
“Painting with colour pencils in this series makes me feel like a kid again after all these years.”
Follow Tham Yoo Yee on Instagram or follow Love Cats Home if you wish to adopt a cat.
YY’s Cat Stories
Shop 3-1, GMBB,
2, Jalan Robertson,
Bukit Bintang,
50150 Kuala Lumpur