Recently in Relationships Category

It’s odd that two separate parts of my past would converge in Monterey last week.

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There was a young boy once who would show up every now and then at the basketball court. He was chubby, and being a few years younger than the rest of the guys, considerably shorter. Not one of the regulars of this particular court, he didn’t get to play very much and would just shoot the ball around on his own.

He kept doing that until one day he wasn’t so short anymore (still a little chubby though), and we asked him to join us. The time and effort he had put in shooting the ball all that time paid off - he certainly had more game than many of us.

I never knew his name, until many years later when Cheryl brought him to church.

His name is Leon, and I remembered the relentless work ethic he brought to the courts so many years before.

I also noticed that he was now taller than me.

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20 years ago I was entrusted with taking care of a young girl over the course of a 4 day church camp. I was supposed to write letters of encouragement to her, pin it up on a huge notice board without revealing who I was. I don’t remember what we wrote each other, but I do remember it being deep and heartfelt.

Over the years I have seen her transform from a little girl who wore frilly victorian-styled dresses to the amazing woman before us. Though the years and geographic proximity would render us more distant, I have always felt entrusted with her well-being, albeit through thought or prayer.

It was until she brought Leon to church when I realised that this imaginary role now belonged to him. I remember my initial reaction being one of relief. This boy would definitely try his darndest.

I’ve been creating the website for Teachers’ Day for the last few years. It’s a site to celebrate Teachers’ Day in Singapore, which falls on the 1st of September. We’d normally invite the public to write short notes to the teachers who have touched their lives in one way or another.

As part of system testing, I’d always write to Mr. Ng, who taught me English Literature in secondary school. I’ve not been able to find Mr. Ng, not on Google or Facebook, not on MOE’s internal staff directory. I hoped that he’d eventually read my short messages and get back to me.

Because he was a really special teacher to me.

When all other teachers were exasperated beyond belief at my disinclination (to put it mildly) towards the doing of assigned homework, Mr. Ng took time to converse with me, person to person. I loved literature, but always found writing down answers on a piece of paper the most inefficient way to expand the mind. It was during my many conversations with Mr. Ng that I found a fellow journeyman who hadn’t lost the awe and wonder that came with reading wonderfully written lines. We spoke about Shakespeare and about life; and he never did ask me to hand in his homework.

It is an intimate relationship when you know someone by the pieces of text they hold dearest in their hearts. Mr. Ng’s favourite poem was “Convergence of the twain” by Thomas Hardy. Its cadence and the build up towards the impending collision between the Titanic and the iceberg appealed to him, he said.

It strikes me deeply that I’ll never have the chance to tell him how wonderful he was to me.

This year, like the other years, I built the Teachers’ Day website and launched my first dedication message via Twitter. I received an email hours later from a friend, who also happened to be many years my junior in secondary school, asking whether or not I had known that Mr. Ng had passed on a few years back.

The finality of it all sunk in. I was at a wedding dinner when I read the email, and everything went about in a blur. The one thought that kept coming back was: “I missed it.” I should have said thanks earlier. I should have spent more time with the people that matter. I shouldn’t have procrastinated.

Like the poem, we all see this coming, for all our relationships. It’s what you do between the first line and the last line that matters.

Faith and I have been married 5 years. Half a decade, two amazing kids and a pretty messy home. What a ride.

I had meant for it to be special. I did. I wanted a short vacation away, and it was only at the last minute before booking I realised Caleb didn’t have a passport. Thoughts of flowers, spas and romantic dinners crossed my mind, but the bustle of everyday life washed it clean away.

So I was there, stroke of midnight, receiving a present from Faith, empty-handed. The day of the anniversary passed with Faith going back to work and I looking after baby Caleb. She came home that evening and I was still empty-handed. She was naturally a little upset that I had not made the effort to make the day special, but reassured me constantly that it wasn’t a big deal. Her present was nothing short of wow, by the way.

Typing this out now I realise how big a numbskull I am for not doing anything special. She has put up with me for 5 whole years, for crying out out. It may sound like a cop out, but I love her tremendously every single day I’ve been with her, and it becomes hard to “step it up” for the special occasions.

I didn’t have to play it big. A simple card would have made her day, and I didn’t even do that.

:(

I’ve been on course the last 2 weeks, and it’s sad that friends made over this time will be out of sight as the routine of real life is set in.

The time spent there has revealed quite a bit and raised a number of questions as to my role in the civil service, which for the most part has been on the technical aspect. There is a need for me to pray - to know the direction God intends and for the courage to pursue it.

Faith sent me a bunch of flowers to cheer me up at work. I love this girl.

Life’s been a little crazy around here lately. The new Ministry of Education site is due for launch very soon, so moving those huge cogs to fall into place is a full-time job and then some. On the home front, we’re busy preparing for the arrival of baby Caleb.

He’s called Caleb because Caleb was the first name to go on our list, and Anne refuses any other suggestion. So there Caleb, your sister’s stubborness named you.

All these million-and-one things to do makes me a little irritable as my brain constantly sorts out the next few moves. What to do, who to talk to, shelving aside good ideas that aren’t so urgent but mentally bookmarking them so I remember to revisit them. As the to-do list grows longer, I get snappier as I don’t have the luxury of sitting back and strategising. The never ending tirade of doing buffets me, wave after wave after wave.

Just realised that I typed “wave after wave after wave” with only my left hand. Do you do the same?

I digress.

It’s Valentine’s Day. Didn’t realise it until a colleague gave our flowers to everyone in the department - an extremely sweet gesture.

Tribolum turned 8 yesterday. So much has changed since. Finished college, married Faith, begot Anne, awaiting Caleb / Ezra, moved out, became a civil servant (I still shudder at the thought).

To me the major theme of this portion of my life has been that of goodbyes. Maybe I was a fool to ever have held on to the notion that I’d never have to let go; that somehow the world would remain small enough to always be part of my life. The small village life does not exist in the city.

I haven’t spoken to my childhood best friend in years. Many people I grew up with have moved to all corners of the earth. Though just a phone call or an email away, the distance seems unbridgeable. It is not a physical distance or a chasm created only by time, but one forged by life. Life may not bring us to the same place.

People who read my blog 8 years ago have gone on to do other things. Most were young people interested to read about my long-distance relationship with Faith. Now that we’re married, that chapter is closed, and those readers too have moved on.

I guess I’m learning to enjoy the ride, and not worry whether the party I started out with rides the same sled. We’ll probably bump and meet some point down the slope. I can’t help wondering how everyone is though.

So I turn 30 in a few minutes and tonight was the usual family fanfare. Food, food and more food. I don’t have the metabolism of a 20-year old anymore, so this’ll probably take me a while to burn off in the gym.

This year is that I brought along extra help to blow the flame off the candles. Help would come, whether I wanted it or not.

What a difference 3 decades makes.

It is odd having just left New York only to see her again on the inflight entertainment on the outbound flight. The usual touristy reaction “I was just there” silently escapes my lips, and I finish up the viewing of “The Devil Wears Prada”.

I then realise that the while I traversed her streets as an observer and outsider, my sister lives and works there. I had introduced her to Tucson years ago as you would a teenager to the Queen. and while I now leave the shores of the United States, the teenager I brought has become a woman, a New Yorker.

It feels odd to be on the opposite end of reciprocity. Min showed me around - the eating places, the subway system, the sights, the physical locations of places I had only known from the silver screen. It was as if what I now stood where I had only seen through a window, and my sister lived on the other side.

It isn’t easy letting go of the fact that not everything lies contained with the island confines of Singapore. To think that a few generations ago, before the advent of human flight, the idea of the global village would be ludicrous, and many, many lives were closely knit within a small physical space manageable by one’s conscious mind. Where everything was in view and all activities within earshot. Not a million miles away with poor substitutes like email and IM.

But like every good older brother, our younger sisters can only soar when you let them have free rein of the air. To have spent the week flying under her wing, rather than her under mine, was a humbling experience whose taste I imagine myself having to get accustomed to. The arrows of the young will fly further and straighter than mine. I need only to show them how to flex the bow.

A post following Mis_nomer’s comment on the dilemma Chinese New Year reunion dinners bring to newly married couples. The almost-painful helplessness of not being able to be in multiple places at the same time has become a silent but ever-present companion the older I grow. I fall in love with people and places far too easily and the realities of time and space, not to mention the general inertia I seem endowed with sometimes makes me come across as callous and uncaring.

To the many wonderful people who’ve lived in my life once upon a time - childhood friends who have since drifted, strangers who have offered me help when I least expected it, mere acquaintances whose one smile made the day that much better - to everyone with whom I’ve shared an instance of realness, of intimacy, even if it were just a fraction of a moment:

I love you; and am indebted to you all.