Dear Sophie,
I don't know how to start this letter to you. What do I write ? How do I stop the tears from shadowing my eyes as I type? What do I say? How do I say the many things I should have told you before? How do I tell you today, the things I should have said yesterday? Dear Sophie, there's no knowing whether you knew how much you meant to me. I never told you, but I told everybody else. I should have written more. No, I should have called more. You always broke the silence when I took long to communicate. You were always happy for me.
In s.2 when we became friends you taught me the meaning of friendship. We were so different yet such good friends. You laughed at my silly stories. I laughed at your 'phoney' German accent. We had good times. I just wish I had not taken them for granted. I always thought you'd be there when I got back. I hope you knew that you were loved, appreciated and that you forgive me for the time I took our friendship for granted.
May you rest in peace.
Love ,
your best friend,
Sophie
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Eid Mubarak!
Today is Eid. Eid Adhuha to be specific. Yet I only remembered this half assedly as I pondered on whether or not I should email my dad or simply call him over the weekend. I settled for emailing him today because in some way, religion is the one thing we bond over. I play the religious enthusiast while he is one of those few people who actually practice what they preach. My dad is certainly a do-gooder but a preacher he is not.
Ideally, I would want to be a better person, maybe even a great person. I strongly believe that religion will help shape me spiritually and have a great impact on my perception about life. Yet I am acutely aware that even without religion there are great people. My father is one of those people. He is a great person irrespective of religion. The real challenge however, is how to live a religious life when every single thing I am passionate about seems to be in exact contradiction with my belief. How do you practice a religion when you find yourself apologising everytime you are asked what faith you belong to? How do you defend that faith when all you have is your belief in its good intentions but don't actually have the evidentiary passages to support your claims because, God forbid you can't read the language! And for the love of God, how does one reconcile the fact that the few verses one knows of that faith were memorised only in that foreign language and their translation was never actually internalised?
I honestly don't know how. I can only say that right now I am agnostic at best!
Ideally, I would want to be a better person, maybe even a great person. I strongly believe that religion will help shape me spiritually and have a great impact on my perception about life. Yet I am acutely aware that even without religion there are great people. My father is one of those people. He is a great person irrespective of religion. The real challenge however, is how to live a religious life when every single thing I am passionate about seems to be in exact contradiction with my belief. How do you practice a religion when you find yourself apologising everytime you are asked what faith you belong to? How do you defend that faith when all you have is your belief in its good intentions but don't actually have the evidentiary passages to support your claims because, God forbid you can't read the language! And for the love of God, how does one reconcile the fact that the few verses one knows of that faith were memorised only in that foreign language and their translation was never actually internalised?
I honestly don't know how. I can only say that right now I am agnostic at best!
Yesterday.
I am not sorry but scared about yesterday's mistakes. I am not angry but worried about opening up to you. I have laughed with you and never at you. We weren't close friends, so it does not hurt at all. It just scares me to know that I cannot trust you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)