Surreal.

“This is so surreal.”

That’s all we kept saying. “This is so surreal.”

In fact, those 5 days were all surreal. They whizzed past us like a blur in a vintage film. You had been there and but then, here. You had been far and then, near.

“This is so surreal.”

And we both felt special.

I guess I couldn’t really believe you were here. It was the first time we met. We were like strangers and yet old friends. We were living in perfectly different galaxies, and yet, like stars which collided.

“I am so excited about coming to see you,” you’d said. I wasn’t sure if I could say the same. I was, but I was also, scared. Scared sh*tless, as I would have said before, but now don’t, because you think that is a bad word to say.

I guess you were different. I’d never had anyone have so much guts to do what you did and say what you said. You said some pretty crazy things to me, all right. After almost 400 emails over about a year, you flew halfway across the world to see someone you hadn’t met but believed would be worth your effort- me.

I said you were CRAZY. You agreed. And wrote -” :o) “

Over the past year, people kept asking me if I was seeing anybody. I said no. Not even remotely? I said no. Because technically speaking, we hadn’t seen each other before.

Days before we actually met, you were in Cambodia for a mission trip because you have a real heart for the children suffering there in that dark, ravaged country. You wrote, “We’re in the same time zone now :0) It feels so near, and yet, still so far!”

Haven’t we been like this for the past year or so? So far and yet near. Strangers and yet friends. Light years apart and yet found in starburst collision.

I told you to GO AWAY. Because I didn’t see where this would go. This was like some freak online accident that we crossed each other’s cyber paths. Just because we both happened to enjoy triathlon, and longterm missions and helping the poor. Your blog, my blog. Your life, my life. Your world, my world.

Reality check. We live in different time zones. We have different lives. I could be a complete ogre. You could be a serial stalker.

But you never gave up. “Can I come?”

“NO. Maybe we should stop writing. I don’t see where this is going.”

Well I guess I put it more civilly. But not at first. I was mean to you at first.

There was something about you that kept me writing. Something other than your persistence about writing to me daily with imperfect grammar even though I said I was busy. It was something about your having liver cancer before when you were 10, then undergoing a liver transplant, believing in God, doing an Iron Man event (3.9km swim, 180km bike ride and a full marathon) and then giving it all up to pursue a life in longterm missions to help children involved in the sex slave trade in Cambodia.

It was something about your zeal to encourage others with your life story- through interviews by the media or through your writing. It was something about your radical pursuit to find God in your writing, something about your resilience and passion and craziness and sense of adventure to do all this and more. It was something about your forthcomingness and persistence.

It was something about your life which was so different and yet so similar to mine.

“It’s like he’s living a life parallel to yours in a different world, isn’t it?” said a friend.

NO, I said. NO. You cannot come. My friends would think I was crazy. My church mentors would think I was irresponsible and worse, frivolous.

You never pushed to come. You prayed. That was all. And you were persistent.

You said you had a dream. That God told you Something. I remember laughing when I read that. Other boys have said the same thing to my girlfriends. Like, whatever! ONLINE FREAKHEAD!

Then something in the cosmos must have shifted. Because when I finally told my dad and my church pastors and my friends about my email pal from Canada, they all wanted to meet you. They would disown me if I didn’t.

That night before you arrived, I couldn’t sleep. I was so stressed out.

I was late in picking you up at the airport. I was half-running, half-skipping, my eyes scanning furiously for a glimpse of you, half wondering if this were all a dream. You watched me from behind, recognised my dress from a previous photo, then came close to call my name and I was totally freaked out. I jumped as I cupped my mouth. IT’S YOU, OH MY GOSH, YOU’RE HERE. And you laughed.

Well, what was I expecting?

We were strangers and yet not. I had heard your voice over the phone twice. I had received lots of your photos and videos. We were a cyber accident.

We had steamboat with my family that night. My dad was amused. We talked lots. After our morning jog to the beach together the next day, we plonked ourselves on a quiet spot underneath a tree.

“This is my scar.”

A Mercedes-benz scar. That’s what they call the tri-star shaped scar after a liver transplant in medical school. It was awesome, gloriously emblazoned across your chest like a shield, even larger and starker than I had imagined it to be. A scar- the mark of battle, and victory.

“Kids love to touch it haha.”

I felt it for myself.

The next day, we had dessert and tea at Canele, a lovely place you chose, one of those places I have always been dying to go but think too expensive ($8.50 for a piece of cake- garh!). You ordered my fruit tea- I was surprised you knew exactly what I wanted. That night, we went for my birthday gathering. All my friends wanted to meet you. I let you pick my dress. Sunday was meant to be our last day before you headed back to your world.

You came to church. My pastors wanted to have lunch with you- they were so intrigued. You came to sunday school and little Aaron asked, “JIEJIE WAIJIA WHERE ARE YOU AND YOUR BOYFRIEND GOING?!”

I was so embarrassed. “He’s not my boyfriend, Aaron.”

“HUH?? JIEJIE WAIJIA WHERE ARE YOU AND YOUR BOYFRIEND GOING?!”

“He’s NOT my boyfriend!” I was turning red.

“Yea, she’s too smart for me!!” You were grinning and grinning and grinning, repeating what Aaron said and teasing me. I whisked off, feeling very very embarrassed, ignoring you.

We were strangers and yet not.

You kept grinning and I walked off.

We walked around the city and I showed you all the places I hung out at.

“This is so surreal.”

“Yea, I know. I can’t believe you’re here. You’re crazy.”

“Yea, I know. Hey look at that statue,” you said.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” I replied. It was a beautiful brass statue of a vine, and two birds perched on a branch, built on the lobby of a beautiful new hotel. “You leave tomorrow,” I said.

“Too soon. Do you know, I never say goodbye. I don’t like byes, I tend to say, See you! See you later!”

I laughed. What nonsense. I was going to say BYE to you. This was a freak accident. I only let you come because they all said it was okay- I can’t believe they did! (Am I the only conservative, rational person here?!) I had been praying for a long time. I was really scared. I wanted to shut down and run away and say this was crazy. You were crazy. What’s so special about me? I still think you are.

One day while cycling, I had an epiphany- just the day before someone lectured me about not letting God direct me to the mountains He had planned for me because I kept wanting to be in control. I was riding in the darkness by myself, and then I realised… your name means Mountain. Sort of.

So I let you come. I didn’t tell you this at the time.

The weekend passed like an old vintage film playing at high speed-everything was a continuous blur. There were rainbow balloons and raspberry teas and soy lattes and desserts after meals. There were places you said you wanted to go to but we didn’t have time to. “Hey, let’s go to that Japanese deli place,” you said.

But you had to go.

“Don’t say bye! Say see you!!” You insisted.

I would always say BYE.

On Monday morning, your plane never took off. The engine stalled. You had to stay for another day.

“This is even more surreal than the first time we met.” I said.

You were happy about the unfortunate incident. I would have been mad had I been in your shoes. They put you up at a hotel. Of all hotels, it was the one where we saw the statue of the vine and the birds.

That evening, you came to the hospital to have dinner with me because we were having lectures till night time. It was late. You had to go.

“Bye!” I said.

“NO! SEE YOU LATEEERRR!!!” You grinned. You have a wide smile.

“What later?” I chuckled. “Bye!” I rolled my eyes. Time to send you back to Beaverland far, far away. I say goodbye often, and am used to them. But you don’t like them at all.

The next day, your plane took off indeed, but you didn’t. They had messed your ticket up with someone else’s. So you had to stay.

AGAIN.

It was hilarious. And frustrating. And beautiful, all at the same time.

“Oh my gosh. Now nothing surprises me anymore,” I said in disbelief. “First you showed up here. Then your plane didn’t take off and now this?”

“Though it was unfortunate, I really enjoyed the extra time we had,” you texted.

You always put things in words. I sometimes don’t. But you always, always do.

I arranged dinner for you that night with a Cambodian missionary of some sort, because I thought you might like to meet him. But he backed out because his kid got into a soccer accident. You bought me dinner at the japanese deli place we wanted to go to originally days ago. They were playing Googoo dolls, music we both liked. We talked about Bad Cheesecake and Evil Eggplants! 😀 We had awesome dessert. It just so happens we both love black sesame paste. We went back to my place. Grandpa Zhou was there.

You plopped down right next to him, and you both chatted enthusiastically and endlessly in Cantonese.

“Why are you here in Singapore?” Grandpa Zhou asked you in Cantonese, in your native language because you were born in Hong Kong. I didn’t understand, and he had to translate it for me.

“To visit her,” you said, laughing because I didn’t know what you were saying to him in Cantonese, and pointed at me.

“When are you coming back?” he asked.

“When she allows me to. When God allows me to. But first, the question should be, when am I leaving!”

We laughed. And I was tearing because I had never seen anyone speak to Grandpa Zhou on those dirty train steps with such carefree humility and genuinity and authentic connectedness. And the two of you were shocked at my tears.

I never quite explained my tears. You were shocked and worried. It’s just that, all these months and years when I sat next to Grandpa Zhou on those dirty train steps in my sophisticated working clothes with my given-to-me branded handbag tolerating the stares of passers-by and feeling that nobody understood my heart, I never thought anyone would understand. I had had friends who talked to Grandpa Zhou before, but you could tell, it was awkward for them, a new experience, they were finding their way through this new connection and there would occasionally be an air of unfamiliarity, caution and distance. I thought about the previous guy who lined his car with a sheet when we drove him home that day because Grandpa Zhou smells. I was so mad with him-not anymore, though.

But there was none of that with you. There you were, sitting at my spot, laughing and talking like I did. I never thought someone like you existed. It was such a huge encouragement.

Months ago I had told Grandpa Zhou about you before. I said I had an email-pal who wanted to come visit for some crazy unimaginable reason. He said NO. It was dangerous. You might be a freakhead. A stalker. Some pervert. But there he was enjoying your company.

“Zhou yeye,” I said. “This is him.”

It felt so surreal.

Jo says it’s like a fairytale how this all happened. I said it’s crazy. She says it’s just like how everything in my life has been anyway- surreal and crazy, full of random strangers walking into my life and leaving indelible impressions, so this doesn’t surprise her one bit.

“BYE!” I said again. “Don’t jinx yourself! I don’t wanna hear where you want to take me for our next meal, what hotel here is nice and I don’t wanna hear See you later! JUST GO!!”

We laughed. For the third time. Just go.

“NO! SEE YOU LATERRRR! I’m gonna come back to see you, and I’m gonna pray and seek God first.”

It feels like we are living on borrowed time. Borrowed, because you should have died 20 years ago with that liver cancer, and I should have died 4 years ago when the terrible illness happened. Borrowed, because you tell me nobody knows how long you have to live, and some girl in your past didn’t get together with you with you because of that. Borrowed, because your longterm medication has its own jamut of side effects and every day is a precious day.

Cyclosporine. It’s a little capsule you take twice a day. I know all its side effects well. Hypertension, diabetes, kidney failure, gum hypertrophy, hirsutism, obesity. You’ve been doing so well because of your disciplined training. And like Grandpa Zhou, you’ve stopped drinking alcohol completely because of me.

We are living on borrowed time. Borrowed, because every day of your life is a miracle. You should have been dead. They gave you 3 to 6 months to live, and they found out about the cancer by accident- you had no symptoms whatsoever at the time.

We are living on borrowed time, because your first plane wouldn’t fly and the second one flew off without you. God gave us two extra days-our 2 last days were agreeably the best time we had.

We are living on borrowed time. Time which isn’t ours.

It feels so surreal.

It’s like a fairytale.

Now go.

And I’ll see you when I see you.

Thank you for sending me this song 🙂