Just when I didn’t want to think about death, it confronts me again.
I wanted to write a tribute for her, but I gave up. I don’t want to remember that she suicided, I want to remember that she lived, and that I knew her. Perhaps not the real her, but it was good enough for me. At least I knew her well enough to be more than ‘just a student that committed suicide’. I cared when she died.
I cried in class. I’m not sure if it was bad enough to warrant a hug from Kelvin, or Siu Qey following me home on the MRT, or Wan Jing calling me up to ask me if I wanted to talk about it. I don’t know whether my unquestioning promise to never lose contact with Tracy will prove to be only words. I don’t even know whether I should get a sadistic pleasure from the fact that Yvette who rarely calls me called me to discuss this incident.
Do you want to talk about it?
Well, not at the time Wan Jing called, when I was trying to avoid all the questions my parents were asking by going to bed. Who called? What happened in school? Why is everyone calling you up to check on you? Why did you cry, you only mentioned her once. Why do all you youngsters give up so easily? And then the phone rang and to avoid another round of questions I really couldn’t talk, and told my parents it was another idiot from V.J Times trying to sell me romance novels when it really was Wan Jing. Sorry about that.
They’re convinced it started with lies; I’m convinced it started with not wanting to hurt people. Some show their pain like it really hurts, but those who bear their wounds proudly always get people rushing over with needle and thread to mend and make whole again. But some nurse their wounds silently, and let it fester and when they finally die from it, no one knows why.
Was there anything I could have done about it? But if she had come to me, it would have been either she or I. I already have difficulty with those I know might commit suicide, I am not sure if I could have coped with one more.
Secretly, I am relieved that it was none of those I was trying to dissuade.
So why did I cry? Sorrow, for a person who I never knew well enough. Relief, that it wasn’t anyone closer to me. Pain, that anyone could think anything was worth killing self over. Guilt, for being relieved.
I know it isn’t selfish. But a death is a death, any way you look at it.
I woke up the next morning, knowing that she didn’t even get to wake up yesterday morning. I didn’t dream of her last night. I didn’t need to… I’ve never dreamt of her. Did I want her to be a gu hun ye gui solely to let her know how many people cried when she died? It wouldn’t have mattered. Whether I told her others cared when she was dead or alive, she wouldn’t believe me until she had seen it for herself. And the fallout from surviving a suicide is much much worse.
People would never trust you again, and you can’t polite them all away.
When my stomach suddenly complained yesterday I almost wanted to laugh. Life still goes on, after all. I can go out for lunch with my friends, laugh, take the MRT back, be a scumbag, love, do homework, read blogs. It’s like what I told Tracy, you never know you’re sad until you’re happy, and vice-versa. And why not be happy I now know that people care about me too, and that I care about them, even if I’m sometimes too much of a jerk to say so?
I also wanted to write a message to her, but what of her reply? I didn’t need a confirmation of how and why. I didn’t need an acceptance of an apology, for not being there, for being alive when she’s not. I don’t think it would make much of a difference to her that I respect her decision, although I don’t agree.
And I have nothing to ask from her, because she’s already given me what I wanted: A memory of her, alive, one Racial Harmony Day, when the both of us were wearing SIA sarong kebayas, only that hers was green, and mine was blue, and there was a feeling of fun and contentment.
Nothing else, I suppose, really matters.