Somebody you met

Some of the people we met in our life that you only shared a brief moment with them and then they were gone as though disappeared in the thin air, nowhere to be found but you know they are still somewhere out there. They might still remember you if they ever dig deep in the far recess of their memories or they had totally forgotton who you are and did not even ring a bell such acquaintances ever actually took place.

As far as I could remember  a few of my friends that went missing are:

1. There was a very young girl who used to visit our neighbor behind the house of my grandpa. She was related to this neighbor by the name of Soul Jie (passed away the same few days as my grandpa) but stayed somewhere at a different part of the village. I remember very well that whenever general election was around the corner, the village would be filled with heaps of stones brought in by the JKR (Public Work Department) trucks for making the foundation before paving on the bitumen to form the tarmac roads. Those stones were actually blasted out from some mountains or caves using dynamite in quarry operation. There were a lot of shiny, orange, purple and red crytals that mixed with those normal stones. Nowadays one could probably see all those complete crystals which are being sold at decorative stores for very high prices. As kids, we always gathered these colorful crystal as precious stones and gems for our keeping. I presented some of those beautiful stones to this cute little girl whenever he visited us at the right time when these crystals were abundant and readily available. I do not remember her name and had lost the impression of how she looked like and we never met again though we are from the same village!

2. There was a primary school classmates by the name of Yap Wai Keong, he was probably the 2nd best student in class and he left for Johore in primary 2 and never returned to the village anymore. I used to receive news about him from one of his relatives living in the same village. Now we had totally lost contact.

3. There were 2 brothers by the name of Ah Sang and Ah Choong that lived across the road. Choong was one year my senior and he had one of his forefinger chopped off, perhaps caused by an accident. We used to play and jump around the drain that was full of white mud but running with crystal clear water. I used to visit their house that smelled heavily of stinging milk that might have spilled on the floor but not cleaned properly during baby feeding. They had a sister by the name of Ah Lan and her mother name is Nyet Por, the family shifted to KL and they had left the village forever for good!

4. A secondary school classmate of mine by the name of Lam Hong Chee from Pei Yuan Chinese school. We were transferred to ACS to study science stream in form 4. We applied together for the technical college in KL based on the recommendation of one of our seniors Leong Chee Meng. My LCE results should be better but he got the offer instead and he left ACS for this Technical Institute to futher his study. Heard that he is working in a senior position in TNB (National Electric Board)but I have never met him. He used to stay in Temoh and I visited him once in his house. His nickname was "Temoh Railway Station" because he used to tell his classmates that was the place near where his home was!

5. I used to befriend a guy by the name of Michael in St Michael Instituion Ipoh, he was my junior. Somehow we kept in contact and subsequently his family shifted to KL to run a canteen operation. My classmate Chan Sek Tai and I visited him once in the canteen when I contacted him in Kuala Lumpur. After that we have our own life and we totally forget about the existence of each other!

6. My brother and I used to visit my cousins in Bidor. During one of the trips, I met one of the guys who was originally from the same village but shifted to stay in Bidor. We were going to the main road stores in Bidor town and passing by a field while this guy was flying a kite. We called out each other by names, what a surprise to meet a fellow villager at a different town! That was the last time I met him!

7. There was a Sarawakian friend from civil engineering by the name of Law Kah Heng if I still remember it correctly. I was looking for a place to stay in the University Malaya days, and he was my senior and introduced me to this rented house of Leong Khoon Wah in PJ SS2 area. The neighbor staying next door was UEM General Manager Chan Long Kong from Rantau, whom at later part I introduced Yow Han Meng to work for him. A few houses away was the MAS administration manager Mr. Yong who was staying with his mum.  I stayed in the same house for many years even after graduation and left the place only after knowing my wife. Even CC Choi, the cousin brother of my wife and my brother had stayed a while in the same house before. My housemates then also included the national novice squash champion Michael Loo, who used to play with Ong Beng Hock's father in Subang. Law is a good Christian and he used his motorbike to fetch me all the way to locate the house. What a good friend indeed but I lost touch with him when he went back to Sarawak.

8. While I always spent my school holidays to stay with my grandma in tin mines where she worked as a cook, I happened to make friends with one of the guys in the mine whose home town is from Tronoh. After my grandma broke her pelvic bone and returned home to stay with us, I had never met him anymore. Could not remember his name but he was a friendly guy even though I was just a primary school kid and he was already a working adult, we got along pretty well despite the age gap!

I am listing some of these friends that I could remember at this moment. Somehow these people had left a memory or mark in my life, for this I want to pay tribute to them. Wherever they are, I want to pray that God bless them with health and happiness!  God willing, we will meet again!