Friends - The Forever Hot Topic!

How many close friends do you have? Those whom you know will always be there no matter how much commitments they have. Those whom will celebrate your joys, share your woes, appreciate your strengths, forgive your weaknesses. Well, I am blessed with a dozen such pals.

We grew up together. Of course, the dynamics of the friendship change through the different phases of life e.g when we started working, when some got married, when the babies arrived, when some losses were experienced. But what pulls everything together is the belief and trust that we all have in one another. Deep inside, we know we own something that nobody can take away unless we choose to dissolve it.

You may never believe how much strength you can get from such bondage. Take my leaving for example, they never made me feel abandoned for a minute (eventhough my blog is named "An abandoned friend"). I will never forget the "shou mian" that they prepared, the Geylang breakfast they bought for me before I boarded the plane, the waking up in the wee hours of the morning just to see me off, the many phonecalls, msn, skype sessions, the scrap book that contained our photos and my godson's etc. These memories are my strength when loneliness sets in in this foreign land.

It's not only me. I think each and everyone of us finds strength in this friendship. Strength to get through the darkest times, strength to overcome challenges in life. Maybe you will think that with friends like these, would I still need more? Well, friendship is not something you can ascertain how much is enough. It is not something that you can deliberately pursue, but definitely something you have to plough on when hitched. It can be fate that brings 2 person together but it may not determine how beautiful the friendship can ultimately become. However, it takes 2 hands to clap for the relationship to stablise, grow and nurture. Although we cannot and should not dictate that both parties must be able to "invest" equally into it, both parties should at least show interest and efforts to invest.

A friend once told me that friends are functional to him. Each and every one of his friends fulfills a function in his life. What do you think? I only agree if I put on the thinking hat of maybe an engineer i.e. when things are explained in scientific terms.

I always think that my life is beautiful because of the love and care of my family and my friends. To love and to be loved cannot be explained by fulfilling a function. It goes beyond that. It's too discounting to define friendship or any kind of relationship as fulfilling a function in a human's life.

This posting is dedicated to all my friends who have been with me all these years. Cheers! See you back in Singapore soon! Your abandoned friend.