Believe in Neverland

Haven't been writing. Because things happened in a flurry frenzy. Like a shower of leaves when the wind blows, they fly in all directions and trying to capture even one of them would be hard.

As Mavis put it , today was an unusually depressing day. Rain poured for a long time since early morning, and alot of people shifted out today. People are seen carrying boxes, pulling trolley luggages along, and loud tape stretching sounds can be heard. The dumpster area is heaped with stacks of notes, books,assortment of junks, even printers.

But i did not budge. Like an old woman who refused to be evicted from her residence of tens of years when it is finally being withdrawn by the government. I will shift by the latest I have to. Which is today (monday).

Two days ago, a friend messaged me online to ask if i were a O-type blood person. A friend's dad who met with an accident at his workplace who was then in the hospital needed O-type plateletes. After receiving the message, I went. I don't know had i been busy with something would I be so spontaneous, but at that time, I felt that I had to.

Hospital is never my favourite place. Upon arrival, just in time to see my friend bringing four men , assumingly her dad's friends to the blood-testing centre. She was in a hurry, and told me that due to time constraint, the blood-testing centre could only test four persons, and apologised to me for wasting my time. Then she was gone. I stood outside the ICU for a while and observed the people there. There was this big-sized man of about 100 kgs in a white long-sleeved shirt and pants. His eyes were red from crying. Throughout my life, I have seldom seen a man cry, except maybe my dad and uncles during the funerals of my grandparents. He is so massive in size, but at the moment, he seemed so vulnerable. Next to me,seated an old lady murmuring some chants softly and a lady sombre in expressions.

However, those were relatives of another patient, not my friend's dad. I waited for a while and decided to go to the cafeteria, to hang around for a while more in case my friend's dad needed my donation in contingencies. Later her Mom and sister and another friend came to join me at the table. Her Mom then recounted that friend's dad, who was a mechanic, was electrocuted at his work and fell off from an elevated point. He did not suffer any concussion, except for a few fractures on the skull, his right side of the body was burnt from the electric shock, and skins from his lower body has been grafted over to his burnt parts. For about a week he was in stable condition, but things turned for the worse that day. Then she told me that he had been a good husband, a doting father, and how my friend and her sister always bullied their dad in jokingly manner. When a wife can talk about her husband so affectionately after so many years of marriage, the man must have been a good man. He may not earn very much, but he managed to send his daughter to NUS and bring security and love to the family. With that , he is a great man.

I could only comfort her Mom, eventhough besides fondness for her husband and slight anxiety, there was no trace of sadness in her speech. Maybe she felt that there were hopes.
Hopes are such deceitful illusions sometimes but without which people lose the will to fight. It is redundant yet essential at the same time.

Watched Finding Neverland today, and Johnny Depp who played J.M. Barrie , the author of Peter Pan tried to instil imaginations and faiths in his audience of the magical world of fairies, children who never grow up, pirates etc. He was trying to tell us: Don't stop believing, when u do, everything dies...

But hopes can only bring us this far. Inflated hopes sometimes bring compounded pains.Just received an sms a couple of hours ago that my friend's dad has passed away. I have never seen him, nor had managed to do anything to help him, but I feel deeply saddened. The image of friend's Mom , the fondness that showed through her eyes, the words she said about him keep coming back to mind. A good man he was...a good man.

In Finding Neverland, Kate Winslet who played the widow to the four boys who were the muse to J.M Barrie in his characters in Peter Pan (Michael, George and Peter), died after a prolonged illness. Peter asked J.M. Barrie why had his mother died, and how he thought she would always be there, and J.M Barrie told little Peter that his Mother has gone to Neverland. If he believes in Neverland, he will see her in every single page of his imagination.

I am sure friend's Dad will be alive for a long long time to come too, in the hearts of my friend, her sister and her Mother.