Thursday, July 30, 2009

thomas ng thiam syn

i'm sure you would've deleted contacts from your phonebook for many reasons... and i've done so whenever i'm bored and decide to 'springclean' my contact list.

but i had to do it for an altogether new reason that i hope won't happen too often. i did it because i saw ts's obituary in the straits times today.

ts was my section mate during bmt in ns. we weren't close and had not kept in touch after that. some time this year when my buddy from bmt caught up with me over dinner. he said that ts was recuperating at home from his cancer treatment.

he gave me ts's number and i told him if he's going to drop by to see ts, to ask me along. i did not call nor sms ts since i only ran into him once since bmt. it was his familiar and distinctive voice in the not-so-familiar australian outback. he was part of the training troops while i was in the admin team.

we had something else in common too, we were from the same junior college. but regrettably, we didn't quite hit it off or kept in touch. i guess chemistry is important for friendships to blossom and effort is needed to keep it going. both were sorely missing in this friendship. :P

still i can't help feeling a sense of loss when confronted with his picture in the papers. you can't help but wonder what unfulfilled dreams or wishes that he had since he was still so young. a life in its prime dramatically cut short by a scary disease caused by mutated cells.

knowing that cancer is so prevalent nowadays... it's something that could happen to any of us and probably would had happened to a close or loved one. a very sobering thought indeed.

again, a wake-up call to myself to adopt a healthy lifestyle and live a life without regrets because you can't afford to take anything for granted.

my condolences to ts's family.

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