| Now and then, I think of the past and encourage myself back then to stay the course, that if patient enough things would work themselves out, that in the end everything would end happily. A photo of Sun-Jae as she held two infants close, and another with the caption "Mummy cutting a lock of Ellie's hair..." transported me back to Australia. After so many years there she was, smiling back at me, as if I were the only one in the world, as if she could see me. Almost immediately, I regretted having found her. I had always consoled myself that today she could not possibly be the person that I had remembered her to be, that she could not be the one that I had met so many times in my dreams, visions real enough that I could still smell her upon awakening, until consciousness would cast me into that other dream state called reality. And now, there she was, or perhaps it was someone who only resembled her... and yet, it was definitely Sun-Jae, I could recognise her smile from a thousand others. We had met at the Australian National University in the Uni bar. I heard her voice before I saw her face. Lyrical, yet defiant, a loud Aussie "BULLSHIT" boomed from a table behind me. I had to see from whose mouth those words had emanated. When I turned to look my stomach knotted-up and I had to catch my breath. Where is God's place in all of this? Does he have a plan where I might meet someone who could impact me in the same way? If I could, then I would tell that boy years ago to stay the course, never to let go that which you cherish so dearly without a fight. That losing her could be the single-most defining experience in your life, and that her absence would spell the end of a part of yourself, as anything remaining would wither away little by little. I suppose it's possible that I'm idealising some or a lot of what was or could be. Given the chance, would we really go through with it, after all that has happened? It's a fascinating question to ponder, isn't it? ^_^ |
