The Electric New Paper : Death does not end beautiful friendships
An article I chanced upon in newpaper on 25/01/07...I believe some of us can relate to what this reporter said in the article one way or another...
*Smile*
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The Electric New Paper :
Death does not end beautiful friendships -By Ian Tan
"I'M not sure what it is about my batch of schoolmates, but we have suffered a somewhat high mortality rate so far.
When I was in Primary 5, a classmate died after being knocked down by a school bus. Eight years later, a female schoolmate slipped, fell and died in a waterfall in Malaysia.
In 2003, another good friend became the first doctor to succumb to the Sars outbreak. Two other schoolmates have met their end in traffic accidents overseas.
While I grieved, I moved on and did not dwell too much on these matters.
Those who died were mostly people outside my closest circle of friends and my detachment was always apparent to me when I received the bad news.
Then last year, someone in the gang died.
In many ways, D was the most prominent one in our group.
He was the most dashing, had the strong, silent personality that girls favoured and he was always the reluctant leader of the bunch due to these attributes. He was also the fittest, leading our junior college dragon boat team to both national and international victories in 1994.
But who would have expected his stout heart to give out before his 30th birthday?
D suffered a heart attack and died at his office desk late on a Friday night when nobody else was around.
It is quite different when a close buddy dies, compared with, say, your parents (both of mine are gone) or not-so-close friends. You see, there is this assumption that your buddy is supposed to grow old and cranky with you, no matter what happens.
Unlike a wife, a buddy is someone who doesn't expect explicit commitment in the relationship, is always free to listen or dispense advice without nagging and is often the best person to go to when you want to share a dirty joke.
Our gang collectively survived the pimply years of puberty, the sweaty Saturdays training with National Cadet Corps and dragon boat team, the horrible O- and A-level examinations, the exhausting army years and the lost years of university when we drifted apart.
We held on through the busy years of adulthood when, occasionally, we chuckled at each other's wedding suits and increasing girths every time we met.
The past few years have seen us mellowing as we became parents and had to put a stop to our raunchy conversations (at least, in front of the wives and children).
Due to work and family, our get-togethers became less frequent, and if nobody threw a wedding dinner, we wouldn't really bother to call each other.
After all, didn't we always feel that time and space would never wear down our bonds? Didn't we banter so easily even after months or even years apart?
The ride on the chartered bus to D's funeral at the cemetery felt like a school excursion - except nobody was laughing much.
We agreed to stop kidding ourselves and start meeting more often.
These days, we try to leave a seat empty for D when we have meals together, and once in a while, we pay him a visit at Lim Chu Kang.
At his grave, we chat and gripe about work as if things haven't changed. We check out other gravestones to see which ones look better and have better themes.
Every time a buddy working overseas returns home, it is another great excuse to visit D and 'update him' on our lives.
An image sometimes comes to mind whenever I think of D.
It's of the whole gang in our rundown school canteen, sitting together after a long day of activities. I can still smell the perspiration in the air and hear the laughter of the boys as we peeled off the smelly socks and traded stories on the pretty girls we fancied from afar.
D would be smiling quietly, more often because he was too shy to let on about his own infatuations.
At 15, we had our lives ahead of us - full of adventure and danger, full of hope and surprises. Most importantly, we had the faith that our friendship would last forever and ever.
I believe we weren't wrong at all.
*Smile*
=======================================================
The Electric New Paper :
Death does not end beautiful friendships -By Ian Tan
"I'M not sure what it is about my batch of schoolmates, but we have suffered a somewhat high mortality rate so far.
When I was in Primary 5, a classmate died after being knocked down by a school bus. Eight years later, a female schoolmate slipped, fell and died in a waterfall in Malaysia.
In 2003, another good friend became the first doctor to succumb to the Sars outbreak. Two other schoolmates have met their end in traffic accidents overseas.
While I grieved, I moved on and did not dwell too much on these matters.
Those who died were mostly people outside my closest circle of friends and my detachment was always apparent to me when I received the bad news.
Then last year, someone in the gang died.
In many ways, D was the most prominent one in our group.
He was the most dashing, had the strong, silent personality that girls favoured and he was always the reluctant leader of the bunch due to these attributes. He was also the fittest, leading our junior college dragon boat team to both national and international victories in 1994.
But who would have expected his stout heart to give out before his 30th birthday?
D suffered a heart attack and died at his office desk late on a Friday night when nobody else was around.
It is quite different when a close buddy dies, compared with, say, your parents (both of mine are gone) or not-so-close friends. You see, there is this assumption that your buddy is supposed to grow old and cranky with you, no matter what happens.
Unlike a wife, a buddy is someone who doesn't expect explicit commitment in the relationship, is always free to listen or dispense advice without nagging and is often the best person to go to when you want to share a dirty joke.
Our gang collectively survived the pimply years of puberty, the sweaty Saturdays training with National Cadet Corps and dragon boat team, the horrible O- and A-level examinations, the exhausting army years and the lost years of university when we drifted apart.
We held on through the busy years of adulthood when, occasionally, we chuckled at each other's wedding suits and increasing girths every time we met.
The past few years have seen us mellowing as we became parents and had to put a stop to our raunchy conversations (at least, in front of the wives and children).
Due to work and family, our get-togethers became less frequent, and if nobody threw a wedding dinner, we wouldn't really bother to call each other.
After all, didn't we always feel that time and space would never wear down our bonds? Didn't we banter so easily even after months or even years apart?
The ride on the chartered bus to D's funeral at the cemetery felt like a school excursion - except nobody was laughing much.
We agreed to stop kidding ourselves and start meeting more often.
These days, we try to leave a seat empty for D when we have meals together, and once in a while, we pay him a visit at Lim Chu Kang.
At his grave, we chat and gripe about work as if things haven't changed. We check out other gravestones to see which ones look better and have better themes.
Every time a buddy working overseas returns home, it is another great excuse to visit D and 'update him' on our lives.
An image sometimes comes to mind whenever I think of D.
It's of the whole gang in our rundown school canteen, sitting together after a long day of activities. I can still smell the perspiration in the air and hear the laughter of the boys as we peeled off the smelly socks and traded stories on the pretty girls we fancied from afar.
D would be smiling quietly, more often because he was too shy to let on about his own infatuations.
At 15, we had our lives ahead of us - full of adventure and danger, full of hope and surprises. Most importantly, we had the faith that our friendship would last forever and ever.
I believe we weren't wrong at all.
posted by Songs for you..songs for me.. @ 10:57 PM
1 Comments:
At 1:53 AM,
lytz said…
This reminds me of a quote i picked up from Morrie (in "Tuesdays With Morrie")... "Death ends a life, not a relationship."
i'm sure u know who i'm thinking of.. and i know who you're thinking of too..
it's coming to three and a half years now.. honestly i still think of him and miss him a lot.. i wish so much that he were still a part of our physical worlds..
But yes, beautiful friendships will never end.. i know he's still very much part of our lives.. always in our hearts.. the way you know LP will forever be in your heart too.
They'll always be our very dear friends.. let's keep their light in us - always.
*hughug* :)
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