Tribolum.com Making Light of Things

Dearest Faith,

it was exactly three years ago I saw you walk down the aisle to the loud squeals of your primary 6 class. Some of them were given the task of blowing bubbles from the balcony when you walked under them, but many started bubbling prematurely because they thought Ai was you. Three years ago we said “I do”, but it was so much earlier in our youths when we committed our hearts to each other.

14 years ago we went out on our first date. It was to Buona Vista train station to get your concession pass replaced. Now that I work at Buona Vista, I alight at that station every day, reminded at how I saw a pelican (or what I thought was a pelican) along the giant canal. I saw a giant monitor lizard there the other day. My colleague Selwyn who lives in the area has named it Frank.

It was 18 years ago in June when we walked by the beach in Desaru. We picked seashells together. It was then I fell madly in love with you.

Throughout the years there have been so many memories which I never ever want to forget. The years we spent on the phone. The sound of you breathing on the other end of the line, and how close you felt. Even the silence was special, because it was your silence. I wanted to be near everything about you.

How I brought the same cookies to choir practice every Friday because you ate them and said you liked them. You stopped eating them after you found out that I was the one who brought them. And I brought them anyway hoping you’d give the cookies a chance, and that in some vicarious manner you’d give me a chance.

To be near you is a privilege I don’t want to take for granted. I want the electricity of hearing your voice on the phone to last forever. I want to reflect at how blessed I am to wake up each morning to the smell of your hair.

It is easy to let reality kill the fantasy - that what is real does not compare with what was dreamt. But after 3 years of marriage, 14 years of courtship and 18 years of infatuation I discover daily that being with you is everything I thought it’d ever be.

Happy anniversary dear.