Thank you, stranger

Dear Reuben

It all started on Monday night, when I decided to check out your music off facebook on a whim. My heart sank when I first heard the news Friday, but the news remained distant from me because I didn't know anyone of you.

I always had a healthy respect for not only artists and creative types in general, but people who dared to live their dreams and refuse to be put into categories.

I figured you are probably one of these types given the brief profile I read of you in the local papers, so I decided I had to listen to your work, if not for anything other than to endorse your unconventional choice of vocation.

But watching this video of you, there is surely a certain surreality associated with watching somebody like you, with the brawn of your tanned bronzed physique pounding so emotively on the keyboards, and being able to produce music of such emotive depth.

It didn't matter your music is not exactly my cup of tea, or that I heard more technically proficient musicians. The fact that you were more-or-less self-taught, and that you cannot read musical notes at all, probably made your talent for composing stand out even more.

I particularly enjoyed the theme song you wrote for the musical you did with Act 3 for the NTUC Income child-care centre Children's Day musical, Back Home. The lyrics were simple and poignant, but it was mainly your uplifting scoring of that track that I connected with.

And everything became evident when I was reading your blog.

Your entries showed up your complex, thoughtful, sensitive and perhaps most importantly, principled approach to life. I never got a chance to know you in person, but I'd imagine the flip side of this might also mean you were stubborn and had high expectations of others around you.

And I totally identified with these asssociations and a lot of things you talked about. In fact, reading your blog reminded me not so much of what I was like a year ago, but how my life could potentially be as full, if only I discovered my focus.

I particularly respected how despite your success with all the modelling you have done, you were clear on how modelling is not your thing. I also got the sense that you also saw your dalliance with dragon boating coming to a close in due course.

All these because you knew/know your real passion was/is music. You gave up your NTU place at the design school to do this music thing full time, and in a place like Singapore, that is bloody gutsy. And seeing how well you have done, your decision has been vindicated.

So thank you for how you lived your life, because reading your blog entries early Tuesday morning triggered all the questions that somehow made me breathe easier for the first time in months. Issues that have dogged me for months suddenly seemed peripheral with the glimpse of a regained Godly perspective.

I have been in a progressive spiritual-triggered emotional rut since God knows when, but it got really bad since I came back from a three-week jaunt to America in July. Somehow, while reading about your life, questions came popping up in my mind.

Why have I allowed myself to just descend into such a downward spiral? What made me lose my focus? Even if I had a focus, was it something that was fixated on God or merely masquerading as such? Was it fear that made me take things into my own hands? And have my sense of practicality taken me away from the things I am really passionate about?

All quarter-life crisis or graduating student syndrome type of issues I guess, and to think it had to take the life of somebody 2 years my junior to rouse me from my spiral. I learnt you were also on your way back from some time of not-being-so-much-in-church, so I guess maybe you have some sense of that as well.

I am so glad I decided to go to your wake just now.

I had cried myself to sleep the night before. I wasn't sure whether I was upset with the manner of your unfortunate passing, or the memory of my best friend, Gerald Ho's passing 7 years ago, or the sad state of my life. It was perhaps mainly guilt for hankering after the easy option of dying as a way of avoiding life and making those difficult decisions to please God.

While there was a lot of pain and grief, it was the first time I came away from any wakes or funerals feeling uplifted and edified.

And to think I didn't know whether to go initially because I didn't exactly know you, and not going would have helped me maintain some form of distance, because I didn't want to be excessively emotional about this whole thing. Jesus is the answer, and reading about your life has pointed the way back to Him for me.

But I wanted some closure and more importantly, to thank you for what your music and life has triggered in me. It's going to be a long way before I am back with Him, but at least I have a couple of starting points now.

It will always remain my regret that I only got to know about you only in your passing.

It would have been great if we've known each other when you were alive and well. Seeing how similar our work ethic and character could have possibly been, we might even be quite firm friends. While it is now impossible that you score my very first short film, Qing Ru gave me an idea of working on a short film on your life, that is scored by your existing pool of work.

I thought that a great idea, and I communicated that thought to your folks at home. I told them if they were interested, to contact me again when everything's more settled.

So even as your cortege leaves for Mandai in a while, I pray for God's strength and peace be with your family and friends. You are in His arms now, and certainly in a much better place.

See you when I finally do, brother -- and in heaven no less. I shall look forward to our first meeting. Rest in peace meanwhile.

In His Love and Mine
Clement