In Memory of My Three Friends

Three of my friends have passed on many years back.

The first was a friend whom I got to know through social gatherings. We liked the same music and singers. We got along quite well. I lend him one of my favourite cassette tapes. He didn’t appear much at our gatherings because he was always busy either with his final-year studies in NUS or something. We kept in touch with the occasional phone calls then. Usually he was the one to call as I didn’t want to bother him as he seemed to be very busy. Then the calls stopped. But I didn’t think much of it as it was natural as sometimes friends don’t keep in touch constantly. But when they do, you know they are going to be your same old friend.

A year went by and I decided to give him a call one evening in 1984. A girl, whom I later found out to be his sister, picked up the phone. When I asked for him, she hesitated and paused and asked me who I was. I replied I was a friend of his. She slowly told me that his brother had passed on for slightly more than a year of bone cancer. I was too distraught to listen carefully and to continue with the conversation. When she asked me what I was calling him for, I remembered I murmured about wanting the cassette tape back. I apologized and hung up. Though he was already limping when I got to know him, he was a very cheerful person and there wasn’t any hint to his condition then. In hindsight he did seem “quiet” at times and there was always that aura of peace within him. He seemed contented with the present then.

The second was my secondary school classmates. He was part of the “gang” we belonged to. I used to go to his house to do my technical drawings homework. Why? I was bad at technical drawing and it was the only homework that I could do, talk and listen to music at the same time. In fact I timed my technical drawing homework to the radio pop chart programmes. He was also my neighbour. After I moved, we didn’t keep in contact other than the once-a-year birthday and Christmas cards. Then the cards stopped. I thought he had moved away or something. Many of my other friends also slowly “disappeared” when there were no returned Christmas cards. Then a number of years later, in 1987, I read about his passing in the obituary. Though his family members knew me then I wasn’t sure they would remember me and I didn’t try to find out his cause of death. Did it matter how he died? Sometimes not knowing is better.

The third was a Malaysian guy with family and work problems. Sometimes he talked about ending his life in a joking manner and I used to help and offered advice on how to tackle his problems. Was extremely happy for him when he found a girl friend. He seemed happier and the three of us hung out a number of times but I eventually declined so as not to be in the way. Months passed. One day his girl friend called me and said he got work problems again and had talked of dying. I told her not to worry as this had happen a number of times before. The next day she called me and said he had committed suicide by jumping off from his block. I felt so horrible and guilt-ridden then. Even as I write this now I still feel guilty as I did not take him seriously and thought his girl friend should be able to console him. As usual, and especially this time round, I didn’t want to go to his wake and funeral and I was too ashamed to call his girl friend. He was only 28 years old; three years my junior.

Many years later, I met his girl friend at a shopping centre. I was basically stunned but, from a distance, she smiled at me. The smile was an it-is-alright-now-don’t-blame-yourself kind of smile. I smiled back still a bit guilty. We didn’t exchange any words and we walked in different directions.