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Until The Last Day, Until We Meet
I switched my phone on the moment my plane landed at 5am. Immediately, my inbox began to grow fat with sms’s. I saw one from Idler, and opened it quickly as I thought she had gone AWOL and was now back in action. To my dismay, it was an sms informing me that she had passed away.
I decided not to clear immigrations and raced to an internet terminal after I got off the plane. A quick check of my email revealed an exchange of anguish between the Tomorrow.sg team of editors.
Knowing that I would be upset, mrbrown had been frantically trying to reach me with the news. He kept calling and sms’ing me so that I might rush back and attend the wake.
Prior to my trip, I was angry with Idler. My last contact with her was an sms saying that she had been warded and was delirious. But before I could get the details of her hospital, her phone had already switched to voice mail. I was angry because I thought she had gone off on some holiday leaving us thinking she was in hospital.
What was I thinking? The Idler I knew would never have done something like that.
I first got to know her in 2002 when blogging was not a cool thing. We were both misfits. She liked what I wrote and I felt the same way about her blog. Her blog went through many incarnations. You know her as Idler but I knew her as Biks, Julene, Sondra, Idler and then finally Fembot.
We went through many things together via our blogs. In our last and final adventure together, we became editors of Tomorrow.sg and had another series of life-altering events. However, we never did actually meet up until Bloggers.SG 2005. After that, we had coffee lunches regularly as her office was right next to mine. The photo above was taken at one such lunch at a cafe near Amoy street. I asked her to pull a silly face, and she did.
Sondra was a Peranakan and could rattle off many malay phrases used by the Nyonyas. She spoke with a slight Pernakan accent. Deep down inside, she had many emotional issues which were offset by her blog. Faced with many problems in her early adult life that were not her fault, fate dealt her a lemon. But she never did give up, instead she put her best foot forward for the sake of her family and did not complain.
She was a brave woman. She was funny, witty and smart. Sometimes she was stubborn and would resist with all her might. But she never did stay angry for long. After she cooled down, she knew how to do the right thing. She was always well dressed and had nice hair. I remember one day when we all went for a meeting – she turned up with cornrows which I thought were awesome.
Her thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams are frozen and crystallized in the form of her blog. Her family didn’t know that she had a blog. Nobody knew. Through her blog, Idler can live forever.
So I feel sad and I know I will miss her. This is the first friend I’ve ever had that passed away. But I know I’ll see her again, on the last day. So until I meet her again, I’ll keep the memory of her alive.
Goodnight, Sondra – sleep tight until the final day.
Réquiem ætérnam:
Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine;
et lux perpétua lúceat ei.
Requiéscat in pace. Amen.
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