First of April.
April 1st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
4 years ago on April Fool’s Day, around this time at night, I received the call informing me that Wenqing has passed away. I remember asking the caller if it were an April Fool’s joke, because the caller wasn’t a close friend of hers, neither was he someone I was in contact with. He merely heard about her passing through mutual ex-schoolmates.
I remember clearly the events of that night, and the day after. I picked up the call in the living room (at the old apartment where I lived), put down the phone after the news, and then spent a few minutes trying to decide if it were for real. Then I rang Singapore Casket (I was earlier told her body was resting there) and asked if there was a wake for someone by that name. The answer was yes, and they told me which room. I remember the ex-boyfriend telling me I was terribly brave to ring Singapore Casket because he thought it was “creepy”. Nothing creepy about it, really. Nothing creepy too when I went to the wake the next day. Not creepy at all, but very very surreal.
And today, I almost forgot to remember her this day, just like how I forgot to remember her during her last days. Tonight, I spent about ten minutes trying to remember which year it was that she left this world. I ended up asking my mom. 2007, my mom said with certainty. And she’s right. In 2004 we both enrolled into SMU together. We attended the pre-admission talks, sitting side by side in the Biotherm workshop. In 2005, she was a Miss Singapore Universe finalist. I remember the contest was aired live on TV in early March. A year on in February 2006, she was diagnosed with cancer. On 1 April 2007, she passed away.
I spent the last hour thinking about her. But just the once-a-year thinking of her (and perhaps some passing thoughts occasionally) isn’t enough to make up for my not being there, my not knowing, my not sensing of a friend’s needs. A friend who shared enough with me because of our similarities, but because we were both so similar we didn’t reach out to each other.
Once again, I’m an awful friend. And I’m reminded of this every single April First.
