An Open Letter to A Friend Whose Friend Has Just Taken Her Own Dear Life

Dear J

I'm sorry your friend has just committed suicide. I know you had just talked to her a few months back and I know you blame yourself for not talking her out of her suicidal tendencies. I cannot claim to understand your sorrow, since it has never happened to me, though a loss, a death is something that plucks the same string in all of us, playing the same rueful tune, rippling to the very core of our souls, so let me try a few words.

The first time you told me, I referred you to an article where a father struggled with the death of his son. Let me repeat a particular sentence, as it has stubbornly repeated itself in my mind: 

It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.

I know you are sick of people telling you to get over it, so I'm not going to tell you to. But you must. However long it will take, you must. And do not lash at those people. If they bothered to tell you, they care for you. Listen, J, as I have told you before, it takes a strong character like yours to be able to wear one's heart on one's sleeve, but an exposed heart gets cut more. Victor Frankl said that the sun needs to endure burning to give out light. You have a big, healthy heart, J, that's why you are bothered about this in the first place.

Channelling your grief into something else might work. I see that you have started running again after recovering from your injury. I swim, or write silly letters like this. The obliterated place is literally 'against the letter', so I would use words to construct the obliterated back. Remember the ankle injury that cripples you, forcing you to wear ankle guard like a clumsy Robocop? It has healed, hasn't it? The big gash in your heart will someday close, too, and you will be able to run again, be it on the field-track or the life-track.

I believe in a proper closure. That's why we have funerals, to mark the closing of a life. We have New Year's Eve celebration, to mark the closing of the year. I don't know what is your version of closure, but I hope you will find it. Attend her funeral, talk to her parents, write her a letter, write her family a letter, let go of a helium balloon to the vast sky, take a night walk in remembrance of her; do what you can do. Mark it as a closure to a chapter in your life -- a bitter chapter indeed -- and start a new chapter. Take your time, but do not dwell so long -- grief is like quagmire, the longer you stay, the longer you will get stuck.

Remember your big heart, J, the one with gashing wound and has to endure nuclear fusion to shine?
Glow for all to see.

Yours

Revisitation

I've come to realise that a part of growing up is to revisit childhood memories. You see, as a child we tend to be fascinated by every little thing, and our memories are glossed over, filtered through the rose-tinted spectacles. When you have grown up then, to those fond memories do revisitations, or as Kierkegaard put it, Repetition.
I'll give you an example. My mother makes really mean croquettes, and as far the child me was concerned, Mom's croquette was the damnedest thing ever to touch his palate. My father used to work out of town and occasionally brought a durian or two home. Again to the child me it was the most delectable thing ever. And I can tell you, the croquettes or durians I have since devoured can never compare to those I had, simply because I have associated Mom's croquette as the mark of a happy ocassion and Dad's durian as a sign of his coming home.

What I'm saying is you may need to peel off the extraneous layers of gloss on your memories, but then again maybe not -- why bother with that which has become the ideal, the unattainable? Maybe if factual information is important to glean, then you need to. But at least you need to recognise them as they are, and when you revisit the memories again, no need to suffer unnecessarily because the scenery isn't as magnificent as you remembered, the food isn't as delicious, the people aren't as kind, and so on; and chase after that which have become etched shadows in your mind. Because growing up includes an acknowledgement that you will never catch them.

Little Words

A little while ago, someone asked me to retract a comment I have made. I did what I was told, but behind my one-word compliance and the act of deleting that comment, was a torrent of daggers. Of pejoratives, of expletives. Like a cartoonish scene where it is calm and warm by the fireplace, but by the window the droplets incessantly knock the glass like bullets from a submachine gun. Up to this moment I still wonder why I am so bitter -- understatement -- about the little incident; after all it was just one sentence, one line. A dim, flickering light in the midst of high-flux spotlights, making no difference in or out of existence.

If I want to be brief about it though, perhaps the reason goes something like this: As someone who aspires to use words to make a living, I produce every line with careful consideration, and this one was no exception. Wordsmiths take pride in their creations, and when those flickering children die, the wordsmith die a little. The issue was what I said can be interpreted as libellous, somewhat. But exactly that was what I took pride in in that statement -- it can be interpreted as praise or scorn. For those in the know, the interpretation can mean that the person in consideration is lenient, lenient to a fault perhaps, but nothing scornful. For those not in the know, this nuance would be absent. Thus I was playing the classical ambiguous statement -- crusing along the fence -- here. It explains the situation quite nicely with a veiled nuance, without giving too much away. "Witty enough," said the self-editor in me.

Let me digress. Words and mouth are quite intertwined. The mouth, being the producer of the spoken language, is subject to a lot of metaphors. Needless to say, they are related to speaking and eating. But: speaking produces, eating consumes; isn't that antonymic? But there is an excellent example which manages to unite the above ostensible opposites:

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
-- Matthew 4:4

And how interesting indeed that the one who spoke of these things is also known as the Word, or Logos in the original Greek. The mouth is then a point of reconciliation. Words are bread. Words nourish us. Indeed these are true for the words from the Scripture. But we bear semblances to the Word, after all we are in his image. Thus the words we produce indeed nourish sometimes, though at most other times they destroy.

In this way our words are powerful, our tongues are tongues of fire dancing a dance of destruction. And I'm reminded of this everytime I recall that little incident.

It doesn't help to abate the internal pouring torrent of expletives, though.

How Zeus Unites All There Is

[Ms. Freedman / Sophomore English / Period 5 / Journaling prompt: Write a one-page story in which your favourite mystical creature resolves the greatest sociopolitical problem of our time.]

I can't exactly say what the greatest sociopolitical problem of our time is. And that's befitting of the title 'the greatest', it refuses to be captured in a few words. But I will try to explain it as I understand it. It probably can be summed up in one word: fragmentation, but give me the luxury to elaborate, if you please.

I would start with countries. Countries are strange -- people need to be segregated, given different identities, possessing different cultures. Ms. Freedman, I came from a third-world country. My great-grandmother travelled the rough seas to settle down there. Wars had been fought, blood had been spilled, our land had been occupied, our people had been slaves, because -- because of our exotic spices? Mr. Duma, our economic teacher, said that countries specialise and trade is beneficial. Tell that to our plundered land, to our raped women, to our children forced into labour. Tell them! Just because you happen to be born on one side and we on the other; no, it doesn't give right to you or I to treat the other side like trash. Countries need not be separated like this.

The very fabric of our economy is in shambles. I don't know about stocks and forex, probably you do, Ms. Freedman, because it seems like nowadays everybody's uncle is dabbling in stocks and forex. I am always bewildered at how people can make money based on changes in stock price and currency exchange rate. Where does it come from? Someone's gotta pay for it all: a man's fortune is another's misery. The feeling is somewhat like when how I sweat at the thought of air-conditioning -- where would the heat go? The law of equivalent exchange -- we will pay for our cool air somehow, maybe we are. Is this thing called economic structure a big Ponzi's scheme like the one cooked up by that Madoff guy? Would our children or theirs pay for the price eventually? Seriously, Ms. Freedman, how does one sleep with these thoughts? 

My mystical creature would be able solve this. I choose Zeus. Alright, Ms. Freedman I know it's cheating -- 'mythical' is not exactly 'mystical' but fussing over minor differences may be someone else's greatest sociopolitical problem ever, you know. Anyway, Zeus. As in Zeus the ruler of the gods. The one in the presence of whom all heads, mortals and gods alike, must bow. The one who wield the thunder bolts. The one causing static tingling in the electronics section... OK, that must be a different god, but I digress.

Having reigned over naughty immortals (who acted suspiciously similar to adolescents, mortal ones), he should know how to reign over us mortals. He would establish good governance, unified every country into a federation, set up a sensible economic system, etc., etc. No, he won't be a communist leader, nor will he be a fully democratic one. Before Aristotle was, he is; so I would presume he knows something about moderation.

Having said that, I would advise not to rely on him completely. After all, we are mortals and he isn't. The word devil may have its root in the Greek word diábolos, slanderer, but I am more persuaded to believe that it goes back to the Sanskrit word deva, god. It reminds us that the angels can fall, the Morning Star banished to the depths of Hades. Which fits wonderfully to Milton's Paradise Lost, where the Greek gods are cast as the fallen angels. See? I did my summer reading, Ms. Freedman.
Alright, Ms. Freedman, can we drop this farce already? I've told you how my favourite mystical creature resolves the problem. Well, the problem is still there, and it's not going to mystically resolve itself. So we've got you and me and a bunch of other people. Not mystical in any way, but that's the point.