Jen - 11.52 am

I was in Ikano when the first sms of the day came through at 12.06pm. I flinched.

Jen's sis : My sister went home with The Lord at 11.52 am today. Thanks for prayers.

I couldn't control my tears, mom just stood there looking at me, not knowing what to do. I know it was better for her to go. We all knew that but I just felt so sad, knowing that she's no longer here. When such things occur, I'm reminded of how fragile we are and that we take so many things or people for granted. Telling ourselves that there's always tomorrow for us to delay what we can do now. The thing is, we just never know whether there is a tomorrow, whether we go to sleep tonight and are able to wake up the next morning. So, tell me, if you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?

I stopped crying and decided to make myself feel better by buying books to read. I went crazy and bought 6 books because I just felt like burying myself into them. The first book I'm gonna start on is Adrian Mole : The Cappucino Years by Sue Townsend, The other books are The Man Who Ate the 747, Rhode Island Blues, I Am What I Ate, Standing In The Rainbow and What I Learned On The Way To The Top. I hope to finish all 6 books by end of this year and being the occassional reader that I am, this is an achievement!

After passing on the news about Jen, we found out that there will be a daily wake service at 9pm on Friday, Sat and Sunday. She will be cremated on Monday after a church service at Kristus Aman in Taman Tun Dr Ismail. She had also left instructions that we should all wear yellow on that day (yellow is her favourite colour). We then made arrangements to attend the wake service at 9pm tonight. Euro and I arrived first and Sweet and Ju, later. I was okay till Sweet came out crying and before I knew it, tears started to stream down my face. I put my arms around Sweet and reminded her that she had said that it was better for Jen to go, so, we shouldn't be crying. We slowly dry our eyes and we kept it on an upbeat note by reminiscing the happy times the group had. We saw a lot of old schoolmates, some looked the same as they did 21 years ago while some looked entirely different. It turned out to be some sort of reunion for us and it took Jen's demise to bring us all together. I'm sure she must be smiling. Well, Jen, I don't think I look good in yellow but for you, I'll do it. Looks like I have to do some shopping later!

photo © Michael Jastremski for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery