one year today. my sweet friend. RIP.

one year already, and i still shake my head thinking "really? she is really gone?"
and i was just miles away from being a day-to-day part of her life. i think about her hearts, those that lived with her second by second, that loved her to her core and beyond. i think especially of Simon and wonder how he's doing. i think about Mrs. and Mr. Cameron. of Wendy.

i woke up thinking 'there is a day to live and there is a day to die' and i think today is a day to live YOUR life to the MAX my friends. to celebrate being alive. even to celebrate being in love and getting dumped, cos you get that 2nd chance. you get to walk bare foot and have long showers in good health feeling your entire life still ahead of you and you get to feel the sunshine on your face.

driving to work today, i saw a man sleeping on a bench. it was across the courts at the traffic lights between Jalan Raja and Jalan Parlimen. he had his legs crossed and was sleeping on his side, and had one arm stretched out. he looked like he had had a rough night with one too many bottles of toddy, and i watched at him with such a total array of emotions. first in deep shock (as it was like 9am! it was the heart of Kuala Lumpur and he was still blissfully unawares, and hello, wasn't he going to be late for work?!).

and then in concern (was he even alive?? what if he was lying there dead? and then he coughed and coughed again). and then in utter disgust (wtf was he in such a state of total un-control that he needed to stay the entire night out sleeping on a bench?). and then i smiled. sigh... cos i suddenly remembered all over again. the blazing nights of walking home so drunk we needed a "designated walker". stumbling and laughing and singing and crying... we used to (regularly) find some of our mates passed out drunk on the sides of the main road back to Deakin Uni from the local pub. and i laughed cos this guy, like us then, gets to wake up, shake himself, go home and have a shower, and think wtf? BUT he gets to just get on with life.

and its all ABOUT choices. get that? i did. watching him in slumber, i did. Camo lived her life, right to her last breaths... and beyond.

camo is a shining star...

author's note: thanks to my very sweet friend David Nic i received camo's CD today. camo even wrote little notes after every song (title) that she had hand-picked/ compiled into this CD, intended to speak to us after she was gone to heaven.

so please do allow for me to present to you:

Songs Of My Life - Narelle Cameron

Turn! Turn! Turn! - The Byrds
This has always been a song that I wanted played at my funeral. "There is a time to live a time to die". Now is the time to celebrate my life.

Do You Realize - The Flaming Lips
Like the above, it's time to realize that life is short and should be celebrated. If you have this CD, it means you are special to me and I want you appreciate what life has to offer.

Breathless - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
This song reminds me of my love for Simon

Common People - Pulp
It was a difficult decision to make as to which Pulp song to include. This reminds me of England where we rented a flat above a shop and cut our hair and got a job! And of course did a lot of dancing to this song.

Wonderwall - Oasis
A classic Oasis song that couldn't be passed.

Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve
This song reminds me of my time in England. This was a time I spent with many people I loved, including my mum, who called this the drinking song. A song with a lot of memories.

Elephant Stone - The Stone Roses
Another difficult decision to make - so many Stone Roses songs to choose from. The only reason I chose this song was that it went well after The Verve, and it reminded me of dancing at Rave. Good enough reasons to me!

Vapour Trail - Ride
A lot of meaning behind this song and this band. One of the starts of my independent music 'phase' that continues.

Soon Is Now? - The Smiths
The Smiths is a band that I have long loved and danced to, especially during my uni days. Although most of the songs are 'down', they always made me feel 'up'. Don't read too much into the lyrics of this song, just the tune!

The Ballad of Tom Jones - Space & Cerys Matthews
This is a fun song that reminds me of a time at Karaoke with Wendy doing a duet, another fun night out with the gang.

Girls & Boys - Blur
What memories this song has!! A hard decision to make as to which Blur song to include, but this song won with the memory of going Bridgewater with Wendy sky diving and we changed all the words to the song. Fun!

I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor - Artic Monkeys
A newer song that I would find myself dancing to if I was able to dance again.

And you know I always look good on the dance floor!

Fell In Love With A Girl - the White Stripes
Which song to chose? Since I'm in love with the world, this seemed appropriate.

Gold Lion - Yeah Yeah Yeah's
Another newie that would see me on the dance floor.

Metal Mickey - Suede
Who couldn't help but dance to this tune at Rave? I was always on the dance floor with my beautiful friends

Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn And John
A new song but one that is infectious with it's whistling and would have me dancing for sure!

Alright - Supergrass
"We are young, we run green", with lots of memories of dancing as well. You know, I always though the lyrics were "we are young. we are free"!! Alas!

Days - The Kinks
I thought an appropriate way to end the CD.

Thank you all for the days you gave me. I won't forget a single day - believe me!

and so we have 50

50 posts that is. on my amreeth Blog.

i remember so vividly starting this Blog, my anxiety at the creation and the theme, and then i remember how i felt after my 1st two posts. and then again after my 1st short story. and then my 1st dark poem, and suddenly, i was alive again :)

i think the power of words, tumbling out into cyberspace, influencing and shaping, sharing and exposing, must be the biggest adrenalin rush there is really!

forget the F1 baby! these words that spring unbidden into my inner mind, swirling and metamorphosing, pulsing through my fingers out onto my keyboard, pushing to be published, has been my greatest self-discovery this year.

and so, onwards and upwards to my next 50.

p.s. i haven't felt like writing a short fictional since camo died, but i am hoping it will all come back soon.

what makes a ghost??!

have you ever thought about it, i mean like as in really pondered the question? versus just going by the typical Hollywood interpretations.

in Hindi, a ghost is called a Bhoot, and so doesn't really sound very scary to me, ahem, being a non-native Hindi speaker myself. i wonder what the scariest word we have in Bahasa Malaysia would be? "hantu"? "pocong" (this contributed by LWB; but she thinks it is a corpse, covered in a white sheet!). anyway i seriously digress.

i just wanted to say that i think i know the answer!!!

you see, i was lying in bed, napping one afternoon over our long Merdeka week-end, and with my very heavy black-outs, one can almost think it is genuine night-time, such bliss. when i suddenly thought of camo. this in itself is not unusual, as i sleep every chance i get on any given week-end AND i have been thinking of camo daily since she passed on.

i was already waking up so it wasn't purely a dream. neither was it a completely conscious thought. i was waking up, thinking of camo and then suddenly i heard this whisper. it was more a breathing into my inner ear, and then suddenly there were words inside my head. and in my subconscious, i immediately knew it was her, or my need to connect with her.
it was like she was "standing" just inside my bedroom, whispering to me through my mirror, and i got a deep immediate sense that she was blissfully happy. and she was whispering a question to me... "what makes a ghost?"

we had a rapid back and forth flow of words. no other way to describe it really. there were no real sentences. just an exchange of feelings, and mutual thoughts all tumbled together, and flashing images. and i "heard" through this channel of communication that ghosts often exist only thanks to the living. to those of us that are "left behind" that feel a loss so immensely, we start to fill that vacuum with our hopes that the dead are still here with us. lingering and participating and our conversations with them are ever on-going. we still have this unfinished business we need to off-load. and this is how a ghost is created.

do i think i am being haunted??! NO! for i know without a doubt that she is in heaven now. plus you are so not listening to how we create this connection in our minds.
do i believe in ghosts the Parapsychology way?? YES! i wanted to study the subject as my first degree (a story for another time!)
but this whispered conversation, i think this was merely a self-creation because i got an email from David Nic last week and he asked for my mailing address as camo left behind something he thinks she would like for me to have. and i have been carrying all these unfinished conversations in my mind. and it makes for a saner way to eradicate the whisper don't ya think?

the inevitable

La cuenta, por favor = The check, please.

well, long have i heard it, and repeatedly in a variety of ways, that the only thing man is sure of the minute he is born is that he will be one day closer to death.
yet, you never really think about what you would do if you knew unequivocally that you only have 1 year to live. most "normal" people think it's a macabre topic and so that's just that... (and we all know how i detest the concept of normal!)
i am guessing that a lot of what you would do next, would in the most part depend on how healthy you are at this exact point, when you receive "the" news, and how long you will stay healthy after.

all a moot debate i suppose, as one never knows how one will react per se. but i now have the ultimate role model. and i will struggle to stay as cheerful, as upbeat, as optimistic and as loving as my dear friend Narelle Cameron was right until the very end. and i will try to embrace each day to its fullest. (aside - Camo married her prince and has gone to heaven knowing how very loved she is. and every single loved one she has left behind, knows too, without any doubt, how very much she loves them.)

and so i started to think, why the heck wait for news like that??! i am almost 40, and have spent the bulk of my life thinking some Bollywood movie is just going to happen to me. but i should know better... and so i made this list of the top 5 things i want to do by this time next year (22 August 2007) regardless of if i live "forever". the list is intended to make my own Bollywood movie, to carve a little of my own karma. and so maybe this list is a little fictional at points, and even maybe a little blue sky thinking given my current life-style and state-of-mind, but as my mates in adidas used to chant - "impossible is nothing".

so here we go-go:

1. i want to be at my own wedding, and as THE bride, i want to be looking into the eyes of MY MAN, who is marrying me as he loves me with the full force of his heart, and i want to see and feel that love without a doubt. oh, and i want to be wearing that exact same lengha that Rani Mukherjee wore when she met Shahrukh Khan for the very first time, in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. so that my hero, my Dad, can dance the Shava Shava song like he promised (he will be 72 next year). maybe i can rope in my crowd-phobic cha-cha-ji and my very suave disco-dancing thayah-ji into the Bollywood sequence. hmmm...

2. i want to have saved up so much money that i can just not work for a year and stay at home and write my best selling... novel? collection of short stories? vampire tales? hmm, how about my suicidal dark depressing unrequited love poems?? whatever! i want to write full time! and still pay all my lifestyle bills. moving along here...

3. i want to start a small center/shelter for education and rescue in honor of my best friend, the green iguana. word IggySingh :) for all the times you have rescued me right back and helped me become a decent human being.

4. i want to meet a vampire. and persuade him that i do deserve eternal life, and that he should bite me. where are you?? what? you don't believe in vampires??!

5. i want to stand at the Iguazu falls and feel the dreams of my childhood... and reflect on how we are all connected, every single one of us, even before we realize it.

so meet back here in August 2008 people, and remember, live every minute.

the end: Narelle is being buried tomorrow at the Springvale Botanical Cemetery, 3pm at the Boyd Chapel, Melbourne, Australia. and she has "organized" the idea of drinks for her friends. to drink to her full life at a pub in North Fitzroy. i salute you Camo. and until we meet again in our next lives, Chak De Sista!

The Beauty Of Death, to Camo, may you RIP

In memory of Narelle Cameron.
May she rest with God and in peace.
11 January 1971 - 19 August 2007.

I would like to reflect on this poem by my favorite writer Gibran Khalil Gibran: The Beauty of Death

Part One - The Calling

Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and
Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights;
Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and
Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body;
Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume,
And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead.

Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired;
Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit;
Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart.

Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, for
It's magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests.

Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowers
Raise their crowns to greet the dawn.
Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light
Between my bed and the infinite;
Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle of
Her white wings.

Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips.
Let the children grasp my hands with soft and rosy fingers;
Let the ages place their veined hands upon my head and bless me;
Let the virgins come close and see the shadow of God in my eyes,
And hear the echo of His will racing with my breath.

Part Two - The Ascending

I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the
Firmament of complete and unbound freedom;
I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are
Hiding the hills from my eyes.
The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the
Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses;
The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter
That looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight
And red as the twilight.

The songs of the waves and the hymns of the streams
Are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence;
And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity
In exact harmony with the spirit's desires.
I am cloaked in full whiteness;
I am in comfort; I am in peace.

Part Three - The Remains

Unwrap me from this white linen shroud and clothe me
With leaves of jasmine and lilies;
Take my body from the ivory casket and let it rest
Upon pillows of orange blossoms.
Lament me not, but sing songs of youth and joy;
Shed not tears upon me, but sing of harvest and the winepress;
Utter no sigh of agony, but draw upon my face with your
Finger the symbol of Love and Joy.
Disturb not the air's tranquility with chanting and requiems,
But let your hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life;
Mourn me not with apparel of black,
But dress in color and rejoice with me;
Talk not of my departure with sighs in your hearts; close
Your eyes and you will see me with you forevermore.

Place me upon clusters of leaves and
Carry my upon your friendly shoulders and
Walk slowly to the deserted forest.
Take me not to the crowded burying ground lest my slumber
Be disrupted by the rattling of bones and skulls.
Carry me to the cypress woods and dig my grave where violets
And poppies grow not in the other's shadow;
Let my grave be deep so that the flood will not
Carry my bones to the open valley;
Let my grace be wide, so that the twilight shadows
Will come and sit by me.

Take from me all earthly raiment and place me deep in my
Mother Earth; and place me with care upon my mother's breast.
Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed
With seeds of jasmine, lilies and myrtle; and when they
Grow above me, and thrive on my body's element they will
Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space;
And reveal even to the sun the secret of my peace;
And sail with the breeze and comfort the wayfarer.

Leave me then, friends - leave me and depart on mute feet,
As the silence walks in the deserted valley;
Leave me to God and disperse yourselves slowly, as the almond
And apple blossoms disperse under the vibration of Nisan's breeze.
Go back to the joy of your dwellings and you will find there
That which Death cannot remove from you and me.
Leave with place, for what you see here is far away in meaning
From the earthly world. Leave me.

Khalil Gibran; born Gibran Khalil Gibran, Arabic: جبران خليل جبران, Syriac: ܓ̰ܒܪܢ ܚܠܝܠ ܓ̰ܒܪܢ (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese American artist, poet and writer. He was born in Lebanon and spent much of his productive life in the United States.

reflections of my friend, Narelle

she is just lying there now, her body crumbling from the inside out,
and she is losing her battle to death-by-cancer, in fast-forward.
closing my eyes here at my desk in Kuala Lumpur, i am a lifetime away and i can only imagine her there, wedged deep within her blinding anguish. it is surreal.

i wonder constantly where her soul is now? is it still trapped inside of her, feeling each fresh pulse of pain, each fresh battle lost, as the cancer continues on savagely to consume methodically and to decay some more? i can almost see it moving on in sheer precision to the next untouched spot, to devour and to corrupt. or is her soul thankfully embracing the heavy doses of medication, meted out to numb her into oblivion and bridge the journey she must now undertake alone?

is she already floating above? watching her new-12 day husband and eternal soul-mate, her sad father and her strong mother, her loving friends, as they rally around her stagnant, emaciated frame? watching each one of them helplessly, unable to come back? or maybe she has already said her good-byes to them, and leaving them sitting there still, has simply flown out of the window, and up into the clear blue Melbourne skies above?

i remember vividly the very first time we met, Camo and i. and how i was absolutely awed by her red hair, and sparkling bright eyes, her heavy doc martins. and now in a blink, 17 long years on, i remember the very last time we met, pre-Chinese New Year 2007. all bones, naked skin-head, she was struggling to hold herself steady on her steel crutches, smiling contagiously as she opened the door for me. noticing my Double Happiness pendant and calling it by name (which is no small feat), she was convinced i should start dating on-line, and how i may just meet my prince there (as she did herself all those years ago now).

she had this thing about her toes back in university. she would never ever walk barefoot least someone accidentally touched her feet, and she was petrified of the shivers it would then start deep inside of her. i think of that often when i walk barefoot now, and i wonder when God will finally take her?
or is she gone from us already, and her comatose body merely a symbol for us that hold on to her still?

my heart got broke...

Tiene algo en negro? = Do you have something in black?

how ironic is life, eh?? i get camo's wedding invitation and i feel this enormous surge of happy relief that her scan results must have come back "negative" and the cancer is finally beat, and she is fulfilling her immediate dream of dancing at her own wedding.

only to call her and hear that there is good news and there is bad news. so the good news is that she is getting married. the bad news is that the doctors have done all they can for her and that she now only has a few months to live.

so is this how this chapter goes? that after battling cancer one battle after the other, since first discovered in september 2006, after losing her womb, and her hip and about 4 inches of her leg, the dreaded C has spread into every possible bone crevice that chemo is no longer able to keep things at bay.

i can only superficially describe the physical and mental traumas camo must have been through. she is however cheerfully upbeat, worried somewhat you might be hurting with her news, always considerate as to how you are coping. she is holidaying with her parents at the moment, savouring the bitter sweet opportunities to make these potentially last memories, before she returns to Melbourne for the benefit concert her fiance, simon is throwing for her, and for cancer patients on sunday night.

and then she rests up, until they have that small and intimate ceremony on the 5th of august. needless to say i started shaking yesterday when she told me over the phone, and i am still shaking. i had to ring off as i lost my composure and i cried like a hysterical baby most of the night. it has been a long time since i fell asleep with the tears still rolling down my cheeks, leaving wet spots on my blanket.

but here's to camo. who will be the most beautiful being at her own wedding. she will laugh and live and love to the very last second. and then she would have also planned her own funeral. wanting always for loved ones to stay happy, and celebrate life and each other, and not the sadness of all things as they stand. pragmatic. all gifts to be instead donations to the Cancer Council of Victoria.

i salute you mi amiga. and i thank you for every second you have been yourself, and a true sister to this malaysian who will eternally ever be grateful for your warm inclusive welcome into your life, your family, and your friendship. God keep and protect you always...