Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

I've always been fascinated by partings. When we bid someone farewell forever, be it in life or in death, its always with such paradoxical emotions. The joy at knowing that a friend has closed a chapter in his/he life, and is starting a new one, yet a joy tainted by the sorrow and regret at the closure of something so good that we once had. Even being happy for one who has departed, trusting in the promise that we shall meet again in a higher place, mixed with the pain of the permanence of the parting for now.

I've had opportunities galore to bid people farewell, from friends going overseas, never to be heard from above, to those who've left and com eback, only to leave again... I've had relatives who have passed away, friends and peers who are likewised deceased already... I've had friends in my past whom we've agreed not to meet again due to altercations, and close friends who have simply moved on with their lives and gradually grown distant... and of course I've had love spurned and parted for good.

Yet even as each occasions calls for such such different emotions, and different deliberations, it always results in the same... remembrance and nostalgia.

I find myself strangedly enchanted by the glances in parting scenes everytime I watch a show... it bears an irresistable fascination for me, and evokes in me a peculiar pathos... the impression of a desperation to store away forever as much memories as one can manage... every sight, every gesture, every detail of the person... and also the regret that it has to come to a parting such as this... So much emotions can be made out of that one little shot of a parting look.

Reminds me of the song by ABBA, in the musical Mamma Mia. "Slipping Through My Fingers". The desperate regrets, the feeling of letting go, and the recognition that from now on it won't ever be the same again, but that its time to move on.

The first time I heard abt one of my peers dying, it struck me just how much I was affected by it. Wasn't particularly close to begin with, but we were after all once friends, and had spent a considerable amount of time together. And like all funerals, when walking round the coffin, and looking at the body inside, all the memories of conversations we've had before comes to mind, and the things we've done together. Within that split second, a collage is painted of all our shared exstence, which would have taken days to be described and narrated. And any disagreements we once had suddenly seemed so petty in light of the finality of parting.

Have been sending off lots of friends for studies in the past few years, some of them very very dear to me. Naturally, the pain at losing them is something very tangible. The regret is even more so, at the lost opportunities to cherish each other better in the years we've had together... And its those times at the airport that I desperately try to store up as much of them as I can, taking in their every gesture, their parting words, the things that were said in our last few moments together before we'd be parted, sometimes for good. And after that comes the many many times when I'd sit in church, or wander around in town, and the memories would resurface of the things we've done together while they were still in Singapore. The movies we've watched, the suppers we've had, the programs we've organised and led in church, the places we've studied together...

Suddenly letting go becomes impossible to do. And I soon start to wonder if letting go means I have to forget. Does being able to remember with fondness and also a tinge of regret imply that I have yet to let go? Where does sentimentalism cross the boundaries into the trap of living in the past?

In the meantime, I continue to be absolutely fascinated by just how much a parting look can evoke so much emotions inside of me, stirring up so much that I can't even begin to understand.