It was around 7 in the evening. I was at the office checking my mails. My handphone rang. It was Arthur. He was in Japan. Trembling my body was. I heard that voice after a long, long while. I expected the call. He told me through email that he would call me by Sunday. In fact, I waited the whole day. I thought he never would. He said he could not connect. I gave him the wrong number or the wrong country code or the wrong...oh I don't remember, everything seemed perfect. Don't get it wrong.
It was a Sunday. I read at Mass. After the mass, I talked and mingled with my friends. I met some familiar faces and some new ones. It was fun. Then, I learned that I would be reading the sermon (homily) on the third Sunday. There would be no mass. Priests will be going on a week-long retreat by then. There will be just a special service. I was happy and honored.
On my way home, I met some Malay. I cannot talk their language, they cannot talk English. But we talked. Friendship (in whatever form it may come) knows no boundaries. For about two hours, we sat on the hot cemented floor down the great Komtar building and chat. We were like children using sign language only that there was sound. We would laugh at our follies but we apparently enjoyed it. Nobody noticed the time until I told them it was getting late. Their names were James and Wie. Nice knowing them.
Then there was Soon Tatt. A training assistant in the celphone service center I registered with, he gave me his number and we were exchanging sms. What a good way to meet friends. It turned out that he would be working til 9 in the evening. That is why he was surprised I was not working. Hey, I told him, it was a Sunday, a holiday. Not for him, I know.
Yet, the best part of the day was when my phone rang. A great deal of memories from yesteryears came rushing back while that same voice hovered on the line. I could not believed my ears. I just know that even though he did not see me, he could sense my excitement and happiness. There could be nothing to say more than that.
Then just like old friends, it was never tainted by distance or by time or by age. It does not count. Friendship, like wine, gets better in time. We tried to reminisce whatever there was. When we were young...when those days spoke of our trying-to-let-go-innocence (as if there really was!)...when there was nothing ahead of us but expectations.
It was the best friendship I knew then. He was the first person to show me that I was capable of being a friend. We always would spent much of the day together. Though nothing much to talk about with or nothing much to do, we simply got stuck ourselves with each other, just to stick it out. It was him who opened my mind to greater perspectives. It was him who introduced me to things I never had thought possible before then. It was him, only him, who carried me along the steps I trodded. And when I was alone on my way, he was at the end waiting for me. He let me be me when we were together. He showed me who I really am and accepted me just that. He never made me choose but allowed me to get along with most of the people around me. He showed me who he was to see who I was when I was with him.
Life, as simply as that, could never be more meaningful. With a friend by my side, that stood with me through them all...
Then suddenly...you left without saying goodbye. You never imagined the void you had me then. I think it was my fault. I never learned of letting you go or perhaps I depended too much on you. I counted a lot from that friendship. It was difficult, painful...
25 years later...you were on the other side. Questions were on my mind... a lot of them. Yet I never allowed them to betray the magnificence of this moment. I drowned myself with that same voice which back in time had been just around.
Too late, there is nothing like that in friendship. Whatever barriers there could be between us now, one thing remains...there is still you and I. Friendship beckons once more.
Comments
Post a Comment