18 Sept 26

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver, “Late Fragments”

I take comfort in knowing that because we didn’t say bye, it’s a “see you again”; and that like before, you quietly slipped away from the party because you weren’t feeling it anymore - a moment that descends abruptly, without warning (to the rest of us). And perhaps like before, you’ve simply just jumped on the train home.

Like that evening last September when I couldn’t find you at the networking event and rang you slightly annoyed that you ditched me, only to find out that you were already halfway home. I hassled you to let me come along and we had dinner at the hawker center. That night we walked back to yours, walking in the middle of a busy roundabout, I shouted at you “you’re crazy! Are you trying to kill us!” That night you introduced me to “a girl”, an old goose at an old folks’ home and we climbed a fence trying to pick at the banana leaves to feed your friend. What a sight - three silly geese and their antics.

See you again, my forever friend, instigator of mischief and fun in my life.