Thankful

1st of Dec. World AIDS Day. The first day of the final month of a turbulent year. Asking the same question I asked half a year ago - what's my greatest achievement in the last half of the year - I must say, being alive. And incredibly thankful for it. Thankful for still being able to breathe, to wake up morning after morning, to go to work, to unleash my passion, to laugh, to cry, to love, to be loved, to travel, to stand still, to pine for and to look forward to so many more meaningful moments in life.

Although filled with sadness to learn of Lo Hwei Yen's murder by the terrorists in Mumbai, in the very hotel I had stayed in some 8 months ago, I quickly brushed it off my mind as I didn't want to dwell on that extremely unhappy incident.

It took but a glimpse of someone's My Paper on the bus this morning to plunge me into pensive thought again. The very fact that she went to Kylie Minogue's concert got to me. I didn't go but my friends did. Just before it started, I texted them to enjoy the show cuz I knew what a showgirl Kylie is. Reviewers would later give the concert 2 thumbs-up. Hwei Yen must have really enjoyed herself that night, oblivious to the terror that would strike her less than 24 hours later.

Last Monday, the same time as now, she was still alive. She would be attending Kylie's concert the following night, just like I had attended the Linkin Park concert last year, the night before I left for Bangladesh. While the deadly Cyclone Sidr hit the next day I was in Dhaka, killing thousands, Hwei Yen's young life was snuffed out by senseless killing on her first night in Mumbai. Why didn't she miss the early flight to Mumbai, having stayed up late at Kylie's concert?

Why is there so much hate in this world? I'm reliving the Japanese Occupation through The Little Nyonya now. Didn't think the show would move me but today's episode has surely done so because a loving couple has to be separated by this senseless war.

I used to hate the Japanese too after hearing so much of their atrocity during the 3 years and 8 months of their terror act in Malaya. But having seen and read more, even from the accounts of the Japanese themselves, it seems the regular soldiers were also victims of the war they wanted so much to end. Their only mistake could very well be their patriotism, probably very much in the same breath as the jihad spirit of the terrorists who gunned down the innocents in Mumbai.

Why has the human spirit taken a backseat in all this brutality?