ramblings, basically.

Song: Green Day - Jesus Of Suburbia

I'm absolutely in love with the essay on today's Straits Times page 20. The one by the Raffles JC student who won the Commonwealth Essay Competition. It was about this boy who is struck by leukaemia, with condition that's critical. The doctor told him he's going to die. He feels bad that he has to put his mum through pain, having to weep at the sight of him every day in the hospital. The essay also shows his take on death...

He wondered if his making her cry counted when he died. He wondered if he would go to Heaven or Hell. He had surely failed in a great number of things. He was the oldest son of his family. He ought to be trying to help her. He was supposed to take the place of his father. He was supposed to be strong. Now he could not even stand by himself, not without crying out with pain. Perhaps weakness was a sin, too. Sometimes in the night, he would cry, because it hurt so much, and that was weakness, as well, because boys were not supposed to cry.

I love her writing style. Makes you see his puzzled thoughts, some of which are parallel to mine.

She (his mother) thought that he would fear dying. But he saw it as a relief, because then he would not hurt any more. There was only mild regret in his heart for all the things he had not done. He would have liked to see his little sister grow up, her with her big eyes and unquestioning trust and ways of bursting into tears for no conceivable reason. He had never seen why she should like to cry so much until leukaemia had begun to eat at his bones, and then he had cried more than she did.

And there was another bit on the rain and God.

The afternoon clouded over, and a light rain began to fall, a patter of droplets on the roof like the feet of fairies dancing. The world turned grey as if God was crying, but he did not know whom for. If He were to cry for all the children in the hospital, then there would be very few tears shed for each of them alone. There were very many hospitals in the world, and there would surely be very many children in each of them. There were not enough tears to go around.

Perhaps it was selfish to think that way, to divide up love that was divine and boundless of measure sorrow by the number of tears. He did not need anyone's tears to comfort him, not even His, because he would die soon anyway and then he would not need pity, or tears, because it would not hurt any more.

And then there was this bit on envy and greed, and the best description of raindrops I've read.

He could lie in a dreamy daze, and quietly tell himself that he was lucky, because he no longer desired to have the flowers that other boys had, or envied that other children could play in the rain. Envy and greed were reserved for the living, because such things no longer mattered to those who were going to die. He gazed at the rain, and listened to the music of the raindrops falling, each one making a different sound on the roof, a tonal melody. The raindrops were dying, too, outside the window where a boy with leukaemia lay thinking of death. Yet the drumming did not seem sad, or regretful, but instead a rejoicing that their brief lives had been spent so well.

They fell, one by one, each one unique, and yet very alike, fountaining as they fell into puddles, like tears springing forth in the midst of laughter, and sorrow and joy mixing at once. It came to him then, as he watched the rain falling, glassy and silver: he would not have known how good it was to run and play, if he had not lost the use of his body.

And the following is my favourite extract of the story, about shadows.

He had been so afraid of dying before, seeing it as a great shadow looming behind him, and with every breath it grew closer. When he had been younger he had similarly been unreasonably afraid of his own shadow, and run all day, trying to run away from it. His shadow would always be just one step behind him, tauntingly close and never lagging behind, even if he suddenly sprinted away, hoping to take it by surprise. But there were consequences to running very fast and looking behind you at the same time, and he had fallen down. Then he had looked down and seen his shadow under him, and screamed.

If he looked only at the shadow of death now, then one day he would look down and see that it had come upon him, and that would be a great waste, because he would not have seen the last moments of light in his preoccupation with shadows and darkness. The world held both the light and darkness, and would not be complete without either.

Absolutely adore this piece of writing. I know I didn't type this out for nothing, because months down the road, I could always click on archives and search for this piece again. :)

posted by sh @ 6:24 pm