Goodbyes

Someone i love dearly has retreated to a place where I cannot follow. Everytime we talk on the phone, there is a tinge of sadness in his voice whenever I ask him about his day's events and activities. One time too many, there have even been tears, painful, heart-wrenching sobbing that provokes my own to fall - partially out of helplessness that i cannot share his sorrow, and partially because it is as if I have come to a door that is locked and cannot be opened to me, because I am not granted access to enter. Therefore, i hold the phone close to my ear, mute and desperate for words that calm and soothe, trying my best to channel all my love into the electrical signals that carry our conversation.

Right from April he had been numbering his days. From camp, to post camp, to exams, to road trip, to now. He knew from the start that his time in Adelaide would be short-lived; what he didn't expect was that his days would be anything but short-loved. Through an awesome organisation whose reason for formation is explicit in its name, he found home, solace, fellowship and love in a foreign land - phileo that is reverently and solely fueled by the ultimate high, Agape.

And as we were talking a few hours earlier, it was then a chapter in his life officially closed. With that, a new generation is given the lease of freedom to be nurtured and developed under the hands of a new chairperson and committee. Thus the old passes, in order to make room for the new; the old, who have only the future to look forward to, and the past to relive the memories of their present for them.

This Monday, as much as I anticipate his coming, my first ever drive to pick him up (not first time driving, mind you ;-D),his hippo-ish embrace and tender warmth, I know that he will be sad because of what he has had to leave behind. I hope to be as sensitive as possible to his needs. I hope to leave myself, the sense of alienation and my own insecurities aside until they fade into unimportance and nonexistence.

I love you, and I always will. And I wish I could be in the place where you are, but there are some journeys we have to take by ourselves. God bless OCF for being exactly what you are; you can only be blessed, and further blessed as you persevere in your uptakings.