LIFE'S LIKE THAT!

GOODBYE, DAD...

2010-01-31T23:56:00.034+08:00

I woke up that morning feeling slightly unwell with my running nose started to annoy me. I had a small ulcer in my mouth that hurt like hell when I brushed my teeth. Apart from that, it seemed like it’s going to be a normal Thursday morning.

It was until my phone rang at the very early of the hour and immediately I had this sudden uncanny feeling about it. My eldest brother called from Seberang Jaya Hospital. He told me that dad had been in the emergency room over a heart failure since about 2 hours ago and asked me to come over as soon as possible. I was devastated and prayed that everything would be fine.

Dad had been complaining about how tired he was recently except that a few days back, he went for his regular medical checkup and the doctor said that he was in a good shape. Dad was warded 2 years ago due to a mild heart attack and diagnosed of pre-diabetes to add up to the list but above all that, he was doing fine.

I drove all the way to hospital with tears in my eyes.

By the time I reached there, his heart had stopped beating. From a small room opposite the treatment room, I watched the doctors and medical staffs trying hard to bring him back. My heart sank. All I wished for that very moment was him to wake up and spare another day with his family.

He didn’t make it that day.

It was all of sudden, out of expectation. I never saw it coming. Being the closest son to him among the others, his loss is almost unbearable for me. Till this day, I am still trying to face the fact that he had gone forever from my life. He was around after all this years, from the first moment I stepped into this world until the day he no longer breathed, and I was there for him. Now, he is no longer around.

It was the saddest moments of my life.

Dad was supposed to retire about a year ago. Instead, he signed another 2 years contract with his company although I told him that he should have settled down and enjoyed his retirement years at home. He told us that he was saving extra money for Hajj and it’s going to be only for couple of years only.

Three days after, I went to his workplace to settle everything up with his employer. I checked his work desk and found a nicely sealed brown envelope placed inside one of the drawers. I tore the seal off and unfolded a piece of undated hand written letter.

It was a letter of resignation.

Tears rolled in my eyes as I read from words to words. He had planned to give up his contract earlier than expected, by the end of next month. He told me about it recently because he thought that he had enough with working and should be spending more time with his family especially the only beloved grandchild he had, but fate has its own way on everything. God knows best.

One thing I miss the most is his smile. No matter how difficult or stressful it was, he never showed it out, especially to his family. He would never let us down.

I could clearly remember the day I received an offer letter from UKM to further my studies in engineering. I was so happy and even happier when I found out that all my best friends had also made through. I told the good news to dad.

“I am happy for you, but I afraid that I can’t afford it. Would you consider of taking form 6 instead?”

He said it softly, at the same time a heartbreaking to hear it from him but I said that I didn’t mind about it. I cried myself to sleep that night but I said nothing about how disappointed I was to him because I knew that he worked so hard and never complained. His earnings as a lorry driver might not be enough to support my studies at university and at the same time he had 7 other family members to take care of.

A few days after, he came to me and said, “You are going to the university. I am going to pay you. Don’t worry.”

It was the happiest day ever but I wondered how he pulled everything off, against all odds. Later, I found out from mom that he managed to borrow some money from a few friends at workplace and a moneylender (or local people here known as Chettiar) and he even took a part time job on the night shift at a sugar factory near his workplace. Still, he never complained.

That’s the one and only, selfless and dedicated dad I knew my entire life.

So we went to KL for the first time in my life by train, in an economy class coach. There were too many passengers that day that we ended up sleeping on the aisle with some other passengers throughout the 9 hours journey because all the seats were fully occupied. It was the one of those memorable moments I cherished to this day.

Every time the memory comes back, I feel blessed and fortunate to have him as my dad. My love for him runs deeper and I respect him more and more every day. I might not end up being the richest or most successful person today but I hope I’ve made him proud enough. He is a loss I can’t replace.

Goodbye and love you, dad.

Now that you’re gone, I’ll be missing you on every single day of my life.

MONEY FOR LOVE?

2009-06-16T07:35:00.021+08:00

The subject popped up in conversation the other day I hanged out with my clique and one of our housemates had just survived another break-up. She spent most of her salary and savings on him and became financially troubled afterwards. She topped up his hand phone talk time credit regularly, bought him a brand new laptop, spent a few bucks for his hobby, let him used her car even without driving license, paid every lunch or dinner they had and many other things that left her broke before the pay day.

“If you feel that it’s worth to spend your money for, why not then?” a friend implied, with others seemed to casually agree with her. I might have concured to that, until she added, “I wouldn’t mind spending every single penny left in my savings for him. People might think that I am crazy, but money isn’t everything. At least he made me happy.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Well, I thought that she’s right for the reason that he temporarily made her happy but what happened if the relationship failed? He might have gone somewhere into the comfort of someone else’s arm, with her money in his wallet. It is painful enough to become single and broken hearted, believe me.

Of course when you are dating someone, it is necessary to spend a few bucks for some good times around. Catch great movies, fine dining, flowers, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, telephone bills and much more of this and that, your spending per month could possibly cover for three months expenses if you are single. I’d rather referred it as an investment to keep a relationship on the go. Big or small your spending is, depends on how serious your commitment towards the relationship.

But that’s not the case here. What we talked about was not merely of a normal relationship basis; it was about how some people took advantages in the name of love because there will always be other people who were willing to pay for whatever the price was. I’ve seen some of my friends went through the same thing, how they suffered momentarily from the break-ups and recovered to find another.

Another friend interrupted, “Sometimes, it isn’t just about love. It’s hard to find one especially when you started to develop wrinkles on your face but your taste on young guys is still the same. We are out of options, out of time. That’s the problem. I feel more to a need of someone to keep me company, rather than sleeping alone at night and feeling bad about being single."

At least she made her point out. I guessed that money could buy almost anything these days. Just name the price. As long as you are willing to pay, you might even bargain love at special price. If love is something that we can easily get from the shelf of a convenience store, is it really love in the first place?

She simply replied, “I know that deep, deep inside his heart, he loved me. You guys might not see or feel it, but I did. And I feel good to think about it.”

Put aside principle, this is a question of heart. Every person deserves to live a happy life, no matter how they achieve it. Love has different definition for each person and we ought to have it, in our own way.

LET IT RAIN, LET IT RAIN

2009-02-13T07:47:00.221+08:00

Couple of months before, the weather had been terribly hot and dry. It was sunny all day long, almost every day! I reckoned that it was the hottest summer ever for the past 10 years and heard from news that it was forecasted to last at least until end of August. The nights were warm and restless that even if I stripped down to wearing only a boxer, I could hardly still close my eyes to sleep. Even if I did eventually, I’d be waked up in the early morning of the hour, feeling grumpy and all sweaty. I knew that the next day at work would be hectic and stressful from the sleepless night I had.

“God, it’s damn hot. It’s impossible to go out in this hot weather.”

I blamed the terrible weather.

I wondered how the long and hot, sunny season had really changed me in a way that I was not even aware of. My mind went like, cluttered up with lot of nonsense stuffs that I couldn’t seem to get them out of my head. I’d gone back home feeling stressed out from frenzied day at work and too tired to even do my favorite stuffs I would normally do at home after work – watching Jimmy Oliver’s Naked Chef on Asian Food Channel or enjoying fine dishes with best friends at our favorite dinner place. I no longer spared my morning time jogging at the park during weekends and spent half hour afterwards digging in roti canai at nearby mamak stall. It seemed that everything was out of place and the only thing I did was just stayed at home, lied down under the ceiling fan at maximum speed, trying to put up with the heat.

Next thing I knew, I went to nearby electrical appliances shop and bought 3 air-conditioner units for each room in my home using my own savings.

Then, on one fine Friday morning after many days of the long, hot weather, it finally rained. I was just about to reach office when I remembered that I didn't bring along my umbrella. I've always kept at least one in my car but since there was no promising sign of raining for quite some time so I assumed that it was not a requisite urge to do so. I made it to office though, slightly wet and feeling chilly but relieved.

“Oh no, it’s raining. It’s impossible to go out in this bad weather.”

Again, I blamed the terrible weather.

I nearly disregarded the beauty of the rain I have always fallen in love with. I've always enjoyed the aesthetic appeal of rain. Moments before it began, the dreary sky looked pale and melancholic, as it metaphorically gave me these dreamy, romantic feelings inside. I didn’t know how exactly I should describe it but I would sit by window and watched the whole scenery took place, from the dramatic weather change until the very first raindrop started to dampen the ground. It was such a beautiful sight. It created the sense of calm and tranquility, to watch the pearly tiny raindrops dancing on my feet.

Somehow a thought popped up in my mind that there would always be good times around despite of all the bad circumstances we came across in our path. It might last for a minute only but it’s more meaningful if we took the time to accept the bitter part of life and to appreciate all the good things that come along with it. God made something happened for a reason.

Important thing is, I should learn to be grateful and to cherish the moment while it lasted.

Although the weather was still the same to this day, I had my umbrella with me this time.

Just in case it happened to rain.

WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND...

2008-12-05T08:17:00.010+08:00

Today, I read a lovely story and I wanted to share it out with all...

One day a man saw an old lady, stranded on the side of the road, but even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes and got out. His Pontiac was still sputtering when he approached her. Even with the smile on his face, she was worried. No one had stopped to help for the last hour or so. Was he going to hurt her? He didn't look safe; he looked poor and hungry.

He could see that she was frightened, standing out there in the cold. He knew how she felt. It was those chills which only fear can put in you.

He said, 'I'm here to help you, ma'am. Why don't you wait in the car where it's warm? By the way, my name is Bryan Anderson.'

Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady, that was bad enough. Bryan crawled under the car looking for a place to put the jack, skinning his knuckles a time or two. Soon he was able to change the tire. But he had to get dirty and his hands hurt.

As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down the window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from St. Louis and was only just passing through. She couldn't thank him enough for coming to her aid.

Bryan just smiled as he closed her trunk. The lady asked how much she owed him. Any amount would have been all right with her. She already imagined all the awful things that could have happened had he not stopped. Bryan never thought twice about being paid. This was not a job
to him. This was helping someone in need, and God knows there were plenty, who had given him a hand in the past. He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred to him to act any other way.

He told her that if she really wanted to pay him back, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give that person the assistance they needed, and Bryan added, 'And think of me.'

He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed for home, disappearing into the twilight.

A few miles down the road the lady saw a small cafe. She went in to grab a bite to eat, and take the chill off before she made the last leg of her trip home. It was a dingy looking restaurant. Outside were two old gas pumps. The whole scene was unfamiliar to her. The waitress came over and brought a clean towel to wipe her wet hair. She had a sweet smile, one that even being on her feet for the whole day couldn't erase. The lady noticed the waitress was nearly eight months pregnant, but she never let the strain and aches change her attitude. The old lady wondered how someone who had so little could be so giving to a stranger. Then she remembered Bryan .

After the lady finished her meal, she paid with a hundred dollar bill. The waitress quickly went to get change for her hundred dollar bill, but the old lady had slipped right out the door. She was gone by the time the waitress came back. The waitress wondered where the lady could be. Then she noticed something written on the napkin.

There were tears in her eyes when she read what the lady wrote: 'You don't owe me anything. I have been there too. Somebody once helped me out, the way I'm helping you. If you really want to pay me back, here is what you do: Do not let this chain of love end with you.'

Under the napkin were four more $100 bills.

Well, there were tables to clear, sugar bowls to fill, and people to serve, but the waitress made it through another day. That night when she got home from work and climbed into bed, she was thinking about the money and what the lady had written. How could the lady have known how much she and her husband needed it? With the baby due next month, it was going to be hard....

She knew how worried her husband was, and as he lay sleeping next to her, she gave him a soft kiss and whispered soft and low, 'Everything's going to be all right. I love you, Bryan Anderson.'

Good friends are like stars...you don't always see them, but you know
they are always there.

PEOPLE COME, PEOPLE GO

2008-11-24T17:39:00.083+08:00

It was the last day for one of my colleague who I barely knew for about 5 years. News about his resignation had became talk of the day in my office since the past 2 weeks and it was actually kind of a surprise to me because I've always thought that he would stay much longer with the company. Another colleague who happened to be my CNN of the office told me that he's going to pursue his career in Singapore with a big, well-known company there. I bet that they must have paid him really good. Early this year, we were both assigned to a project in China for about three months and he helped me out with everything, a lot, during our stay there since he had no problem with the language barrier.

The rest of the afternoon, he went around the entire office taking pictures and addressed everyone he knew. It is well understood that whenever you see people taking pictures in office, it simply means that somebody has resigned today. The next thing will be an email of “My last day” or “Goodbye everyone” and I happened to find out that some of the emails sent were actually a copy-paste from another. It must have been that if you are leaving the company, they’ve probably prepared an email template for you so that you don’t have to spend any time longer narrating words of wisdom to your devoted colleagues. Or simply perhaps, the door is wide open for you so please cut your time short here because you’re no longer with the company!

At one time, our IT administrator even set up a system that treated these emails as junk or spam that every goodbye email you narrated on your last day went straight into trash bin!

The clock struck at exactly 6.00pm as I eventually decided that I should call it a day, got all packed up and ready to head home when he came to me, offered a probably last handshake, with a big smile on his face.

"Well friend, thanks for everything. It's been a wonderful time around here. Hope to see you again in the future. I wish you all the best."

We exchanged another few words of encouragement and a few snapshots after, he left. I remained to my seat, awkwardly felt a bit distracted as I thought that he looked very optimistic and happy.

I turned off my desktop, put on my backpack and walked straight out of the office. As I walked to the employee's car park, I couldn't help to think of all those people, faces that I could remember to this day. Some of them are still around and there are others who seemed to completely disappear from the path of my life. We might have taken different path in our lives and the only thing that keeps us connected is the memories that we left behind.

People come, people go.

Time goes by pretty quick and it has been that way, isn't it?

We meet different kind of people almost every day, probably because by coincidently we happen to be in the same occasion or have the same things in common. We may share the same interest, live in the same neighborhood, go to the same school, work at the same place or possibly simply know the same people. As we move on further with our live, we will find ourselves in new, different circumstances and sometimes we could end up with the same people. Or perhaps different people caught in the same situation.

They could be a stranger you smile at across the street today and who knows, they might be the same person who shares the same flight with you on a long journey back home.

They could be all those long lost friends of a euphoric childhood and I always wonder what happened to them. Passing years could probably make us stranger to each other’s eyes as we grow older and wiser.
They could be someone you had a crush on for the first time of your life in your teenage years, when Mariah Carey looked innocent in her all button up outfits and people at your age were trying to figure out why we needed to learn calculus in the first place.

They could be anyone, even someone you rarely know or hardly speak to.
There was this one guy I knew once, a friend of a friend, and we all went out for the night, spending hours talking about our life over a cup of coffee to another and I found out that we graduated from the same university, in the same years and we kept on talking as if we have known each other for a long time. About week after that, he fell sick for a few days and died.

I was shocked to hear the news because the night we all went out was one of those moments that I could recall till this day because we had so much fun that night. Who could possibly think that it was the first time and the last we met?

Whether knowingly or not, we often forget to look back the passing years that we leave behind and remember all those people that used to be part of our life. They might have left a big influence on ourselves and change us to become a better person today. They are all the people who spice up your life in the past or for the future to come, no matter how significance their presence is.

These people have become part of our life. And we also have become a part of their life.

FIRST CHAPTER

2008-11-02T20:45:00.536+08:00

While we try to teach our children all about life, Our children teach us what life is all about.

-Angela Schwindt-

Some of us just wake up in the morning, struggle for a minute to really get up from the comfy of the bed, dash off for a quick shower and live routine of the day. The rest is history.

Some people just go on with their whole life not knowing the purpose of living this life in the first place. The days go by week, weeks turn to month, months become year and before we know it, our life has stretched far beyond the edge of time. How many of us unequivocally sure what we really want in this life? Are we living our life the way we always want it?

That's something I've always asked myself way back then. Do we even need a reason to live? It's hard to really figure out what we really want, because sometimes what we always want most probably not the best thing for us. For sure, we all have our own reasons; fulfilling desires or pursuing dreams that keep us going on, all this time. At some points though, I can't help but to wonder, how far have I accomplished? Am I working a job? Do I live by my dreams? Is this how things should be?

Sometimes, I feel the need to ask those questions to myself, just to keep me on the go and making sure that I won't be out of track. Where this will lead me to? Well, like I said, we all have our reasons and for me, as long as I live and die happily, it's up to me to decide the next-big-thing for my life. After all, life can sometimes be promising with the fact that everything may unknowingly change within a split second. Even when things start to make sense, all you have are just a mere glimpse of yesterday. Everyday is a winding road. Every turn is a surprise. Apparently, it is easier to just make rules as we go and see how things going to turn out, because sometimes we have to live by coincidence. If everything seems all good and fine, just remember to be prepared for the worst. For sure, we never know what future holds for us but to face the uncertainties somehow, to me, makes life feels more adventurous and worth living.

We will never understand everything in this entire universe and that's the simple truth. There are many things around us that will remain slightly or otherwise out of our comprehension. I was once a perfectionist with high expectations in every single thing I did. Well, expectation usually comes along with disappointment that each time when something goes wrong, I would end up more confuse, uptight and in some ways it slowly relegates my self-esteem. So, I start to let loose, keep my hand wide open for any possibilities to come and embrace what life has to offer. Things may even right suddenly go wrong, but it is much better to accept the fact and get on with our lives but of course, with some lessons to be learned. No one can go back and change a bad beginning, but anyone can start now and create a successful ending. There will always be tomorrow. Just let bygones be bygones.

This gives me the idea that life might actually lead to opportunities but pretty much in a different way. It's either you take it and own it, or just let it slip away. You have to give your best shot and survive to live the most out of it. There will be those times when you need to make the best choice out of options you have but the fact is, you could never have it all. Opportunity is a road to success for people who seek for it. Life should not be limited or bounded to any particular reason because of our circumstances and sometimes it's good to be stepping out of comfort zone and being more that we think we could be. Learn to take up challenges and discover new things in life. There are many things in life that could surprisingly lead us to be more out of ourselves. Never let something that you can't do to stop you from doing something that you can do. Don't be afraid to dream and never stop dreaming. You won't loose anything. Of course, life is never smooth. There will always be ups and downs along the way. I'd say, just enjoy the ride. Bottom line, cherish the moment while it last. And yes, good things never last.

Sometimes when we are busy searching for the meaning of life, we may by chance, miss out great things around us. Life is like a never ending story, and the search is never ends.

It shouldn't be.