Just three days ago, I lost an aunt and attended her funeral in Gombak. It was a hard news to swallow but attending a funeral of an 84 years old aunt was not as disturbing as the news I received from a blackberry private message this evening. I was having a steamboat seafood dinner with Ly Rattana while waiting to meet with AngkorOne.com CEO, Steven Path at the Family Soup dining in Phnom Pehn.
"Yaz I saw on fb of a friend that mentioned a dear friend passed away... 'Farul', I hope its not your friend that had the leukemia as you", reads Melor Edina Pahamin's BBM private message to me. "Huh??? Dont Joke!! Can't be my Farul?" I replied in shocked and insisting a mistaken identity but immediately facebook-email'ed Farul Rafiq Mohd Farid, sms him and even called his dad Datuk Farid Ariffin (but reached the voice-box instead). I did not know what to ask, so I just sms him and said.. "Farul, testing.. if you receive this, pls reply thanks." expecting a reply from him, I waited anxiously... and was lost in a sudden flashback of Farul's cheerful smile and the many moments we both shared when we were battling leukemia.... we were in our mid-teens then.
It was at the Government house at Hyde Park in London, 1992 when we were first introduced by Farul's father whom was then, the Deputy Minister of Health. Farul arrived from Malaysia to undergo the Bone Marrow Transplant procedure at the Hammersmith Hospital, where I had just completed mine. Somehow, we just clicked... and became close buddy bypassing the normal hierarchy of friendship but that is how Farul was... he was friendly but secretive and mysterious in many ways but our bond was build on ties that no one else could understand. We shared common aspiration to make the best out of our supposedly short span of life which we both outlived our own expectation. We shared similar emotional cycle from being angry, rebellious, then self pity and felt numb before being able to accept (if ever) that we actually had leukemia.
