Seven years on

In Memorium

Ho Zhi Ming Gerald

(Nov 20, 1982 - May 23, 2000)

Dear Gerald

Seeing the bus with the pre-university seminar label on it on campus 2 days ago reminded me of how my own participation in the same event 7 years ago robbed me of the very last chance to see you alive.

It was May 21, 2000. A Saturday.

We had our usual Saturday late morning soccer session back at Fairfield. I couldn't go since I was chief presenter of our research project for my school at the pre-university seminar and had to be at the rehearsal that fateful Saturday morning.

Xingteng injured his hand that day and got his hand into a cast at hospital later. And you helped him to the clinic initially.

I found out all these only at your wake at St Joseph's Church on May 24, 2000. I remembered how I just stood by your coffin and just cried and cried. It was as if my tear ducts were reserving their best for that moment.

I remembered only moving away after an hour or so, after your mom came over and pulled me aside. I didn't know what to feel or do -- she just lost her youngest son, and there she was, consoling this wreak of a boy when she probably should be worse off than I am.

But she was so stoic and strong, it was startling.

And then as we talked. I realised you were not exactly truthful to me about some things. For a while, I felt like maybe I was too presumptous to be calling you my "best friend." I mean, we never "formally" called each other "best friends." It just simply felt like it.

Honestly, I haven't really reconciled whether you consider me your "best friend" but after 7 years, I think it's sufficient for me to just know that you are categorically my "best" friend ever.

Some things just don't really matter as much anymore I guess.

But I always had a problem with calling people my "best" friend simply because it always connotated something final to me. With you, I could safely call him my "best" friend ever simply because while it was short, you were about the most authentic and honest friend anybody could ever have.

I wasn't exactly the best student in Sec 4. We were classmates in our upper secondary school days, so you would collect my work for me and cycle to my place to pass it to me.

Remember that one time when I realised only when I reached Tan Tock Seng Hospital for my appointment with the skin doctor that I forgot to remove my keys out of the keyhole after locking it?

You immediately volunteered to go over to check for me when I called you in utter frantic panic.

Nobody, other than my parents, have ever done that for me. Ever.

There was this another time after we had finished one session of court soccer at Normanton Park. Xingteng, you and I were sitting by the curb and talking about what we wanted to do with our lives.

"I want to be an accountant," I remembered you saying with much conviction.

"I don't know what I will be doing, but I just want to make a lot of money," said Xingteng.

"Wah, like that, I how ah? I will probably be a struggling actor, living on bread and water in some dingy area of London man," I said.

You lifted your hands unto my shoulders and told me not to worry about finances because Xingteng and you would be able to help with the cash.

I thought you were joking, but you were totally serious about that. You insisted that I can "definitely count on you."

And we used to talk on the phone about the girl that you liked and the ones that I liked. And you and your inane analogies of life, inspired by your older brother no less.

What struck me about you was quite simply how we complemented each other. While you was the task-oriented and ever the pragmatist, I was the idealist and didn't realise the amount of hard work required to realise those dreams until very much later.

That probably accounted for my state of shock when I first got the news during economics tutorial in Jurong Institute. There were so many voice messages left on my pager. I got out of school, and dashed straight to your apartment, needing some form of confirmation.

Nobody was at home, except for your maid. I knew it was for real.

I couldn't cry. I was numbed, stoned. My mom and dad didn't dare go near me when I told them you had collapsed earlier that day in the third 4X100m relay changeover zone at your school running track, while pacing your friend on his/her 2.4km run after finishing your own run.

YES. AFTER FINISHING YOUR OWN RUN!

What were you thinking Gerald?!

I remembered being angry with you -- why Gerald? Why couldn't you mind your own business for once? You were not feeling well that day for goodness sake. Why must you run? I know you were training for enlistment and you wanted to go to OCS, but you were sick dude. And sick people don't exercise. Why Gerald, why?


I remembered laying a flower at the track of the old SAJC campus a few days later at the spot you died. It took me 2-3 years before I got out of my general gloom that was chiefly motivated by the fact you were Catholic.

I needed to know you are in heaven, and my Protestant faith didn't seem to help in reassuring me. Somehow along the way, I figured it was enough as long as you have accepted Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour.

I figured that God is a God of Grace and Mercy and that He probably wouldn't bother too much like how people do about such intricate details. I figured you are and are still probably up there sniggering at how stupid I have been all these years.

I still miss having you around friend.

Our soccer team collapsed after you died. You were our defensive bedrock. Vincent could never replace your place, tried as he would -- bless his soul.

I couldn't exactly bring myself to play rightback ever since, because looking left and not seeing you there anymore doesn't feel normal.

I still miss my best friend. I miss, above all, having a brother whom I could count on, in good times and in bad. When you died, our friendship was just about blossoming. I wished I had more time with you.

Seven years on, so many things have changed.

If you were still alive today, you would probably have been working as an accountant for a year now, after graduating from NTU accountancy a year earlier, probaby with highest honours.

And you would probably be glad that I took your advice and starting taking my work seriously. Maybe even too seriously now. It just seems so surreal I am going to Bangkok later today to do a feasibility study for my possible honours thesis topic.

We would have been 25 this year. Now it's only just me.

Rest in peace brother. See you soon -- hopefully.

Love you doode
Clement