We lost a friend over the weekend. It was sudden and unexpected. And it pains us to think that she would no longer be around. Just a mere 40 years with 2 young kids and a loving husband. After more than 20 years of friendship, in just an instant, she is gone.
And now we regret not talking to her, calling her more often and telling her how we appreciated her friendship, her kindness, her gentleness, her patience, her caring heart since we got to know her in the Hall. At that time she was a young freshette who was undergoing Orientation and somehow stood out as a beautiful person and my future wife had the good fortune of being her 'Counsellor'. And this friendship blossomed even beyond our undergraduate days. We attended her wedding and then visited occasionally as she bore two wonderful children and built a home for the family.
Our recollection goes back to the time in the hostel when we just enjoyed her conversations- they were alway very engaging and humourous as she related her stories- human stories..and of course some hot spicy gossip. Her kindness shone through when she bought a pair of slippers for my wife at a time when she fractured her ankle. We were touched by it. Being foreign students, we realised for that first time in the Hall that there were kind Singaporeans around, after all. Some years later, while my wife was moving out of the Hall, she got her father to drive his car to help my wife transport her stuff (books, boxes of knick knacks, etc) to another location. And when we had our own kids of our own some years later, she gave her (husband's) old piano to us. This enabled our daughters to learn their music in the early years. Our eldest daughter owes her early musical 'career' to her! She is now a budding musician and composer... in school that is!
There are many more kind acts that she has done but which we ungrateful folks have probbaly forgotten and which many other friends of hers will be able to recall. We just know that this girl was an angel to us.
It is just hard to believe that she has died. We cried as we saw her lifeless body in the box. That couldn't be our friend JP- our friend was full of life and energy. Looking at her obituary in the press was even more surreal. Never in our worst nightmares could we have imagined what was to come for this sweet human being- one of the kindest persons in the world struck by cancer, who was in remission but tragically died so suddenly in her husband's arms over the weekend.
Numbness, shock, disbelief, sadness, grief, regret- just some of the emotions that we experienced. We knew what to expect when one loses somebody important- at least the theory of it..but nothing beats losing your angel.
And so JP, if you are looking at us now from above- we want you to know that we love you and that we will sorely miss you, our angel from the Hall. Thank you for all that you have done for us. Sorry that this came a bit late and sorry for not spending more time with you as we headed into our own hectic lives. But in our minds, we will always treasure the memories of your smiling face, your interesting conversations and your kindness (at a time when we had lost faith in the human race). And especially that one presious conversation over the phone just about a month before you left us. We hope that you will find eternal peace and happiness in your new 'home' and that one day when our time is up as well, that we will reunite with you and catch up on the old stories once again as we used to do before in the Hall. Till then, farewell our angel and may you sleep peacefully till the dawn comes.
