Friends - or Something Like That

It's December and tonight it's raining. Probably, this is why I love December. A month filled with melancholy and damp air, but most importantly a month where we would always stop and reflect of the outgoing year. Has it really been a year, we would definitely ask ourselves though it seems silly to do so.

I love December for as long as I could remember. This is the time when my walk slows down, my heart softens and my emotions get mellow. Everyday isn't as hot as the remaining eleven months. Almost everyday it rains. Suddenly, people all around care about each other and get together in the mood of ushering the new year and of course, the Christmas for our fellow Christians.

I'm not spared in this mood of togetherness. I kept thinking about how wonderful the people around me are and what an exquisite bunch they have always been.

Growing up was hard for me. Jeering and ill-words lingered around me as I grew up. Life was not always all-sunshine-and-butterflies, both at home and outside. Because of my eccentricity, I became the outcast most of the time. An ugly duckling, a black sheep - aren't you amazed that we have names for people like me? They call it a flaw but I never saw it as such even until today.

Neither have my friends.

I'm sure God blessed each one of us with extra gifts but social skills was definitely not one of it for me. Thus, I didn't have many friends and still the number hasn't improved much. But the ones that I have are more than enough and I daresay some of the most fabulous people ever existed.

Couple of days back, I had a rather heated arguments with my mom, over me refusing to attend a relative's function. Then she said, "You were so good to your friends and why can't you be the same to your own relatives? What have your friends done to you?"

I was silent, though I had the perfect answer for that. More than you know, mama, more than you know.

My friends aren't only puppets for superficial joy. They are the ones who call me thousands of miles away just to ask how I was doing, across oceans from different continents. They drive in the middle of the night to come and comfort me from terrible sadness. The ones who shed tears and shared my grief, my loss, my misfortune. They are the ones who accompany me to here and there, never asked for any compensation or anything in return.

They are the ones who knows about me what my family doesn't. The ones who take myself as it always is, and never judged me even when I was going through my ugly phase. They see past through me, as more than what meets the eye and I see them as well. They never took me for granted, never made a qualm about me being a lousy friend in return. When nobody cared about me, they did, and when nobody believed in me, they stood firmly behind me.

For those of you who are interested, I made amend with my mom shortly after that. No worries.


I'm not here to brag about my-friends-are-better-than-your-friends. I'm here to share with you one of the most overlooked blessings in our life and believe me, this one surpasses every other ones. Even if you lose all of your fortune, your health or your will, (God forbid), as long as there are true friends standing right beside you, you'll do just fine.

Take it from someone who has been there and back - me. No other test is better to prove it than to experience it yourself. When you finally do, you'll be touched, amazed and most importantly grateful that you still have some people in your life whom will always be there with you.

We live and we die. Both are not important, what's important is how we live in between. We learn to give and take in order to live in this world, because humans are not perfect after all. That's why we need other puzzle pieces to complete the missing gaps in our part.

We wouldn't know when we will depart, neither do I. So, take this as my eulogy to my friends and I dare not mention names as I'm afraid some might be left out, but they know who there are. We have had so much great times knowing each other and enriching each other's life beyond imagination, so may the coming years bring us more joy, blessings and opportunity to know better of ourselves.