It happened out of the blue.
He had looked healthy enough just a little while back. If he was already suffering then, we would not have known because he looked every way he was before, only a little older.
Then he left us in his sleep.
I did not feel much pain at receiving the news. I was sad, but only for my father, uncles and aunties who had lost their only surviving parent. Yet the man himself seemed so remote to me, and this was someone with whom I had lived together for a period, someone who had carried me in his arms before and watched me grow up. And for that, I am very angry with myself. Perhaps I should have tried harder to understand him, because whatever little I knew about him I had learned from someone else.
All I know is that he was the man who left Malaysia for Singapore with his wife and a few kids in tow. He who was intelligent yet lost so much to his addiction to gambling. He who had once escaped death by a miracle decades ago. He whom I own my very existence to.
There can only be regrets at this time. I cannot help but feel that life is kind of like the seasons, even though we do not get them here. We take for granted the beauty in spring and the bright sunshine in summer. Before you even know it, it is fall and winter will be due soon. Only this winter never ends...
He had looked healthy enough just a little while back. If he was already suffering then, we would not have known because he looked every way he was before, only a little older.
Then he left us in his sleep.
I did not feel much pain at receiving the news. I was sad, but only for my father, uncles and aunties who had lost their only surviving parent. Yet the man himself seemed so remote to me, and this was someone with whom I had lived together for a period, someone who had carried me in his arms before and watched me grow up. And for that, I am very angry with myself. Perhaps I should have tried harder to understand him, because whatever little I knew about him I had learned from someone else.
All I know is that he was the man who left Malaysia for Singapore with his wife and a few kids in tow. He who was intelligent yet lost so much to his addiction to gambling. He who had once escaped death by a miracle decades ago. He whom I own my very existence to.
There can only be regrets at this time. I cannot help but feel that life is kind of like the seasons, even though we do not get them here. We take for granted the beauty in spring and the bright sunshine in summer. Before you even know it, it is fall and winter will be due soon. Only this winter never ends...
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