Why him?

I guess many will say, this is life. Others will say you never know what will happen tomorrow. I have never asked this question before, why him? Until now. Being a emotionally detached person like me, I am always able to take it in my stride every thing that life has thrown at me. But I still wanted to ask Why Him?

This is going to be a long Blog.

I have to admit, being his secondary school friend; I am not close to him during secondary school. It was during my U days that I am able to re-know him all over again. It was a coincidence that I met him again. I got to know his army buddy Aw in my first sem. And since Aw is always with EJ, we got to stick together. And of course DS who is his room-mate who is also my secondary school friend. So I have a lot of catching up to do.

I will always remember the days when we are mugging for our uni exams. I will always go to either Aw or EJ hostel to squat during exam period. I will demand AW's room-mate JF to play the guitar at late night after we finish mugging and we will sing some old songs on JF scrolls. The next day both JF and Aw will complain loudly to EJ and DS in the study room that I did not allow them to have a good night's sleep. And EJ will say that it is luck that I am not sleeping with him and DS. We will end up teasing each other.

Of course, all the people who knows EJ will know about his perseverance in whatever he do, his self motivation as well as his drive to succeed. I have asked him before how it is that he is always able to keep on pushing himself in his schoolwork. He said, my parents gave me so much money to come to U to study. How can I not study hard? This is such a simple reason that it made me stood back and think. Somehow along the course of studying, I have forgotten about my parents’ hopes for sending me to U and stop driving myself. This is what motivated me.

Of course, I will remember the time when I have a very serious crush on my lab mate. EJ and I will be studying in the library and I will make an excuse to go around in the library to see if the lady of my dreams is in the library too. After I came back looking dishearten that she is not in the library EJ will make fun of me by remarking, Oh look so and so is there. I will quickly swing in that direction only to know by his knowing smirk that I am being fooled. We will make all kinds of jokes on each other resulting in being shushed by others in the library. I will always remember EJ and AW and sometimes Debbie in this few instances. Once EJ,Debbie and I are having a short break in the canteen when the girl of my dreams walked passed and said hello to me. EJ exclaimed, Dino why are your ears so red! This of course resulted in my ears getting redder and even Debbie joined in. Those were the good old days.

There are other silly things that we have done together for example, me taking a bottle of Vodka during examination mugging period and demanding that EJ, Aw and JF drink with me. Reason? Forgotten. It is I think 10 days before the exams. In the end we ended up so foxed that EJ and me ended up sleeping in AW’s neighbor room as we are not able to get back to EJ’s hall. We ended up talking nonsensical stuff in the room, about our personal life, our gals and stuff like that. I was very curious about how he and Deb can maintain their relationship for so long. Surely a guy like him, an achiever in every sense of the word, will have his fair share of temptations. He told me, I just need to picture Debbie’s face whenever I am faced with these circumstances. I just can’t bear her sad face looking at me. This is his answer to me. This answer is truly EJ, despite of his many achievements; he is still able to maintain his down to earth ways. All very simple reasons but somehow we have forgotten these simple reasons in the process of growing up. This is what really made him a special person in my heart.

I do not know if it is an act of coincidence that prompted me to MSN chat to him a few days before his mishap. I have lost contact with him after we graduated, my job requiring me to maintain irregular hours while his require him to be overseas. But I am glad I did. I informed him on my coming ROM this Jan and inviting him and Debbie to attend and also my decision to fire my boss to be able to spend more time with my soon-to-be wife. But he said that he would not be able to make it, as he will still be in China. Never did I expect this to be the last time that I would be talking to him. Is it really a case of heaven envies the talented?

At the end, I still wanted to ask, Why Him?
I missed him already.

Kheng Wee AKA Qing Wei AKA Dino AKA Long-ye