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Blogger georgia little pea said...
Dear Anny, I'm pretty sure I saw a post on your dad on my GR yesterday or the day before. I didn't have time to read it because I was on my way to Brisbane. What happened? Did you delete it? Hope you're okay x
28 February, 2013 19:29
Blogger georgia little pea said...
ANNY, I'm feeling a bit twilight zone here. I don't see my comment, though you must have, because you wrote me. I guess you deleted it since it was Irrelevant to this post, which is fine.
I know I saw something else last night on my GR, in passing, and I don't see it here today. About your dad again. PLEASE! What is going on?! Am I nuts?
03 March, 2013 04:42
Thank you to The Typist for kicking my ass and getting me back to writing a very long post for you to read :) You've really thought i've conked right?
~ 19th Feb 2013
Here I am waiting for my train home. Another hour to burn. A macchiato maybe? Starbucks just 10 feet away. Starbucks is where we usually hang out for long catching up chats when i go to Kuala Lumpur. Hoity toity coffee. I could get a normal coffee for 1/10 of the price but we love to do the hoity toity coffee once in a while.
Its raining. The heavens weep. Or perhaps a good wash before they welcome another angel in their folds. She's on the way to Penang again for her final journey to the open seas.
She has finally left us. She passed away on Monday in her sleep. A peaceful death. I am glad. Glad.. happy.. that she does not need to suffer anymore. Her sufferings have finally ended.
Only her ashes came home to Kuala Lumpur in an urn for funeral rites. She was cremated in Penang and brought home on the day she passed away. Her father's wishes. He doesn't want the body to suffer anymore.
It is still Chinese New Year here in my country. CNY usually is about 15 days of celebration. Some people would not come for a funeral as its their beliefs. Some will fear bad luck if they visit a funeral during the CNY. Friends and family however will show up.
I have spent Monday in tears. I am all dried up yesterday. I know she would not want to see us cry. It will hurt her more to see us all in tears. I believe her spirit was with us that night. Even when we went out looking for vegetarian dishes for the prayer table. She was with us in the car directing us all the way like she always does. She was our human GPS. She knows the roads of Kuala Lumpur like the back of her hands.
Don't really know what the days ahead will be yet but I will try and make them remarkable. Time to mend some ties and its time to start keeping appearances with some people.
What makes her different from most of my friends? I have lots of friends but I choose to keep appearances with only a few.
I've known her for 20+ years. We practically spent most of our wild years doing nothing wild and have a good time. We have been through laughther, tears and mostly everything else. I was never angry with her.. not even once. I don't even remember both of us ever having a fight. She was like my soul sister. She trusts me with her secrets and I tell her most of mine. We know to call each other when we needed someone to talk to. We are always available for each other. Sometimes we spend hours and hours on the phone to catch up on lost time.
When she is sad, she always eats ice-cream. We've sat on kerbs outside 7-Eleven sharing a whole tub of ice-cream. It always makes her feel better.
3rd March 2013
She came into my life like instant coffee or instagram. She was instantly my friend. I liked her the first time we became friends. We had many adventures together doing stupid not too wild things. Usually we love to go on road trips and pig out. Sometimes with a whole bunch of people... and sometimes just the two of us when the rest didn't want to catch up. We could go anywhere together, and most of the time, she'll leave me alone to do my picture taking and sometimes she begged me to take her pictures. She doesn't understand why i rather take pictures of windows.. old buildings... or tiles.
I do have a lot of pictures of her. I am currently working on a photobook for her family. Her father misses her most. He could use some good memories of her. I don't know when i'll finish it. It is sometimes quite hard to do the photobook when my vision suddenly blurrs out when i remember how and when the picture was taken and what we did that day.
She has led quite an eventful life. She started working very hard when she left school. She started working 12 hr days and it went on to 16 hr days and sometimes at 12 midnight she'll call me and tell me that she's still waiting for materials to arrive. I do not know of anyone who has worked so hard from the beginning and never quite spend much on herself. She'll give and give it all away to her family... sometimes to friends and to whoever who asked. That's her.
Over the years, we have had other friends and other groups of people in our lives, but somehow we'll go back to this group of people we grew up with. She was with another close group of friends before she got sick. But somehow, she came back to us again. Somehow she was comfortable with us. We understand her from the beginning.
She only started being good to herself in the last three years. She started travelling abroad. She went from Dubai to London to Spain to the USA to Australia and to some Asian countries. She was finally happy and finally willing to spend some money on herself. I've always told her to go out there... spend some money. You have kept enough money, spend on yourself. Don't worry about taking care of other people, love yourself sometimes.
She's at the time of her life when she has made enough to lead a comfortable life but it has to be taken away from her in a most horrible way.
I knew her ending was near. I knew she was going to go. I sometimes pray that her ending will come fast and painless. There's no cure. It has gone too far. A miracle doesn't happen all the time.
We didn't make it for her last birthday. She managed to hold on till her birthday. Birthdays meant everything to her. She used to have a countdown... she'll have celebrations a few days before her birthday. All the way to her birthday. She was a Valentine girl.
Her family was with her. They did a recording of the birthday in the hospital. It was very sad to watch but she was happy that day. Very happy and she even manage to blow out the candles. 4 days after her birthday, she gave up. She passed away peacefully in her sleep with her sister sleeping beside her.
For the past 20+ years of my life... she has not missed texting or calling me at 12 midnight on each of my birthdays. Birthdays meant so much to her. She always try to make other people's birthdays special too.
Anybody can get cancer. Cancer cells are in all of us. It can happen anytime but being unhappy or being stressed could just bump up the speed more. Forgiveness is good. Being resentful or being angry over the littlest of things doesn't do any good to anyone.
I spend a day crying.. just sobbing away. Everything blurrs out. The tears just kept coming. Then i started stuffing myself with rice. I don't know why. That's how i deal with grieve. When mom passed away, i just kept eating and made sure everyone ate. Because life must go on no matter what.
We can blame everything on situations. We can blame it on other people. We can stop living and just keep crying day after day. We can stop working and just blame it on sadness. We can blame everyone and the death of a friend by not doing anything the whole day. But time will still tick and go on. We can take some time to grieve but life goes on in the most hardest way. It has to still go on.
I believe she is still with us in some moments of our lives. We carry her in our memories. I might not find such a wonderful friend again, but i still have Dom. He'll make sure i wake up and get up from bed. He'll make sure i eat and go for walks. He'll make sure to let me know i am loved.
I saw the tiniest orange butterfly in the kitchen the other day. I just hi to the butterfly and asked.. is it youuuuuuuuuuuuu. *LOL* Then i took its picture. A tiny grasshopper came to the kitchen yesterday while i was cooking. I asked again, is it youuuuuuuuuuuuuu again? Not very nice colors today. I assume the black and white bird in the garden is mum. I see it everywhere i go. My mom did mention to my nephew sometime back that when she passes, she wants to be a bird and just be free. It works and it keep and helps people like me move on.
My friend called herself Rain. It was from a very long time ago. Even before the South Korean singer named himself that. I had a good laugh over that and ask her why Rain?? She says its easy to remember and when it rains, people will think of me.
And now, when it rains, i will remember her.
