Losing A Friend I Didn’t Get to Say Goodbye
Gone Too Soon.
This post is dedicated to a friend I lost yesterday, not because she needs it, but because I failed to tell her how much our friendship means to me. I drafted her a text and erased it because I thought “she’s young and strong, she’ll be fine”. Now it hits me that it’s too late. Lifes’ cliché lessons are all true – we are just too proud to admit it.
I have many people I call best friends, yet I’ve never travelled to as many foreign countries with them as with Shea Rasol, who lost her battle with cancer. This picture taken during our second AirAsia sponsored trip perfectly frames our brief but very memorable friendship together.
If there’s one way to really know someone, it is to share a room. Despite our different religion and beliefs, we talked about love, fashion, dating, hair dyes, men, adventures. Over macaron at Ladurée in Paris or at a tiny smoky grill restaurant in Hokkaido, we were each other’s photographer; having fun regardless the season.
She would’ve forbidden me to say this but my friend, she is gone too soon. This talented, ambitious, brave, optimistic generous girl with a bright future ahead of her was looking for love, but it seems she has found the love of her life and that is God. I feel estranged to accept such brutal fate – Do you confiscate someone if you love them? What if afterlife doesn’t exist? – But I know what she’d want me to believe and that matters.
I wish I was a better, more supportive friend; to Shea, and to everyone who knows how to value friendship. Just because someone makes the tough look easy, doesn’t mean it is. I wish I could tell her today how much she inspired me. It shatters my heart to admit that I can never ever do that anymore. You know the lesson of this story.
I wish you are at a better, happier, peaceful place, my dear friend. I’ll always treasure our special friendship that’s full of wanderlust. Al-Fatihah.
Where you might have seen Shea on this blog: Hello Hokkaido, Angelina Paris, Airbus Factory Tour, Xcintillating PhoeniX.
can’t believe i just read this. reeling a tad from the shock. al-fatihah.