The Graduation Year Book

There were times that I left myself alone with thoughts wondering wildly in my wonderland, and desserted myself from everybody else. There were times the same thought came back to me from time to time, and there is a thought, that has be staying with me, for years...

I had always been thinking, what would she be like, if she was to survived the deadly sickness that she had.

Would she be a good writer as what I've always thought she could? I remember the wild imagination stories that she wrote in school days. I even remember, some teachers with no flexibility at all had banned her from writing too imaginative stories because these were the exams. Sometimes I thought, would these teachers been feeling shameful and regret.

I remember her watery eyes that hide behind the studious glasses, the pretty nose, the pinkish lips, and the skin as fair as Snow White. I remember too, the wild laughters we shared those days when I was in the same classes with her. Her smiles, that had planted in my mind, is something that I will never forget.

I felt regret the last time I paid her a visit in ICU, I pretended nothing had happened. I pretended to be perfectly fine on the way home from the hospital, laughing away with the friends in the car. But I cried so hard when my family was deep in dreams. And that was the last time I saw her, lying on the bed, motionless.

The way the sickness had taken her happiness away, is the most cruel thing that I had seen in my school days. We tried so hard to pretend everything was fine, but in fact it wasn't. She missed the exam, and she left on the first day we're having SPM. And I feel regret, the last time I talked to her, I can't understand what she tried to say to me.

Sometimes in my thought, I would remember how we teased her, that a guy in our class was her secret admirer. I never knew if that was true, I never dare to ask the guy ever since. That was heart broken enough if she was a friend, what more if you love her secretly.

I wondered if we would grow apart after graduation because we pursue different dreams. But I would prefer to grow apart that way... Wouldn't I?

Years had passed since she left. I remember telling this story to my students back in those days when I was the temporary teacher, and I drove them to tears. I don't remember how we started with the story, I perhaps one of the student ask me what is the sickness.

Maybe one of the reason I remember her so clearly though we're not the bestest friends, is we shared the same name. And that was the only name, that had never signed on my graduation year book...