for a spoonful of sugar

helps the medicine go down…

Two Three ulcers, a swollen lymph node, and a rising-slowly-but-surely temperature. It’s one of those cases where you could feel it coming from days/weeks away, but thanks to the beshtest friend’s constant mantra of ‘mind over matter’, it had been suppressed. “At least till I’m done with work” soon became “At least till after the bro’s wedding”. And true enough, now that I’m done with the wedding, I find everything either tasteless or literally too painful to swallow.

In an attempt to make it all better, I opted for the tried and tested apple torte, with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream for tea-time. The parents enjoyed it even more with the ice-cream, and both the mother and I concurred that it was the perfect fail-proof dessert to dish out to guests. Taste-wise, however, I could only appreciate the coolness of the ice-cream trickling down my inflamed throat. Everything else tasted as bland as a heavily diluted glass of rose syrup that mothers trick their toddlers with when the lil ones insist on drinking something coloured.

in sickness and in health

Ever so now and then, as I watched him silently seated at the bridal dais, with a glowing smile so bright one could never fail to notice, it hit me that he had donned yet another designation to his name. A filial son to two, a cheeky younger brother to four, a partner-in-crime elder brother to me, a loyal buddy to many, a dynamic lawyer to few, and now, a loving husband to the beautiful young lady of his choice.

There are possibly two things I’m utterly horrid at, hands down. Appreciations and farewells. I’m the sort of person who can barely reply an audible ‘you’re welcome’ or ‘thanks’ when showered with tokens of gratitude or compliments, choosing instead to simply avoid eye contact and nod incessantly, as though to mask the awkwardness of the situation. As for farewells, I guess everyone has a little morsel of separation anxiety in us. There is just something about letting go of a part of you that simply tugs at the heart strings. Mitch Albom said it best when he described every ending as a beginning; it’s just that you may not know it at that time. 

And while a wedding marks the beginning of a path yet to be trodden, I can’t help but reminisce the moments when my brother and I would giggle non-stop while standing in a corner getting punished, when he dropped by my class to pass the song book and recorder that we shared in primary school, and when I used to get jealous each time he lied down next to my mother, and I’d literally squeeze my way through in between.

  

The only things I could offer for this momentuous event was a box of chocolate cupcakes with purple buttercream frosting (a gift for the bride), a photo montage for the wedding reception, and endless prayers and wishes for a marriage filled with love and happiness. Congrats, bro!

pick a pink

I have to admit that I used to hate pink. As in totally abhorred the idea of anything pink. Pink clothes, pink stationery, pink shoes, pink accessories;–they to me were like friendliest flowers to Oscar the Grouch. Utterly <quote>YUCKS</unquote>.

Of course that was before I got in touch with my so-called feminine side. And as the years went by, the male-bashing tomboy got rid of her pageboy haircut, fiddled around with the first few steps of a nondescript makeup regime, began adopting the words “cute” and “pretty” in her otherwise limited vocabulary, and yes, declared a love for pink and purple and am very proud of it.