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Friday, November 24, 2006
BEFORE THE SONG IS OVER
I don’t know about you, but coming back to the office after a weekend is something that I always look forward to, especially if the weekend is particularly long.
I’d normally feel refreshed, re-charged, and raring to resume work -- although I’d have to admit that after certain weekends it’s hard to feel refreshed and re-charged, what with loads of chores and scores of screaming children.
And raring to resume work? Rarely, actually...
Anyway, I would always try to come in a little bit early to settle outstanding matters, and clear as much correspondence as possible before my day starts. It is quite amazing to see what your email box accumulates over the weekend – junk mail, business proposals, queries, as well as notes from friends and distant acquaintances.
I used to feel a bit uneasy when friends, family or acquaintances send personal correspondence to my work email box, especially when the correspondence contained nothing else but recycled Internet jokes.
And I did voice my concern to a couple of friends, who in turn advised me not to be “too uptight” about this. After all, they said, the correspondence – however nonsensical it may have looked or sounded – was the senders’ way of keeping in touch, of saying they were thinking of me.
Well, when they put it that way, my friends made a bit of sense, although I still make it a point to attend to these “you’re on my mind” notes after hours or through my personal computer at home.
My personal favourite email is a poem called “Slow Dance” (see my Sept 5 post) sent by a friend years ago, which I still keep. The gist of the poem is, slow down, set your priorities right – keep in touch, with your children, family, friends. “Hear the music, before the song is over.”
Come to think of it, it is true that some of us do not keep in touch enough with our family and friends. It’s not that we do not want to, but work schedule or things that happen around us somehow always manage to prevent us from sending that “I’m thinking of you, too” email, or making and/or returning that phone call, or making that trip home.
It’s only after when we lost our loved ones or friends that we start to regretfully reflect that we ought to have made more efforts, call more often and do all the other “could-haves” to keep in touch.
I lost a younger brother to a terminal illness a couple of years ago, just as we had just begun to get to know each other better as adults.
I lost a younger brother to a terminal illness a couple of years ago, just as we had just begun to get to know each other better as adults.
We sort of drifted apart, even when we were children, as I was always away from home – at school, university and on to work. When we were in school, would only see each other during term breaks, and after we both started work, only at family gatherings during Hari Raya or extended vacations. Even then, our encounters or conversations always seemed more like those between two strangers.
But after he got married and had his son, we started to warm up to each other, and he opened up to me more than to my other siblings.
I realise now how little I knew him and wish circumstances had been different. Alas, there’s always a lesson to learn. Now I go the extra mile to ensure that I don’t miss my weekly telephone calls to my mother, and the bimonthly calls to my other brother and sisters. And I try to visit as often as I can.
I also make the time to keep in touch with friends. It’s quite easy, actually, once you set your mind to it. I would call friends while driving home from work where I just go through the names listed on my phone and start dialing.
It feels good even if I could only talk to one friend per night. If you have 30 names, by the time you dial the last number, you’d have called everybody on that list once a month.
Now, if only my friends would reciprocate!
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Wetbenang
so sorry to hear about your brother. May he rest in peace. Anyway, some people (including myself sometimes) always take things for granted. Until we lost them, it seems like we never acknowlegde their existence. Maybe it's too late to regret when we already lose them. There's always a lesson to learn from all this. Take care.
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