Sad stories

I love them and I hate them more. Heard 2 such stories today and I have a gloomy heart.

The first story happened many years ago. My colleague from Taiwan had a friend who held a torch for a really pretty classmate. He never officially professed but never failed to call her every week, just to ask if she was well. Years later, they graduated and he left Taiwan to work overseas. The phone calls became less but he still called. Until one day, they completely stopped.

She thought it was strange and certainly uncharacteristic of him. She would contact him but his number was no longer valid. When she could stand it no more, she called his mother instead. His mother told her that her son had perished when the jetliner crashed into the World Trade Center where the office of the NY branch of the Taiwanese bank, where he had worked, was.

He never got the chance to tell her he loved her.

The second story came in the news. A 4th-year NTU undergraduate (I later found out that he's a scholarship holder who had his scholarship terminated last month) killed himself after stabbing a professor. What tremendous stress was he under that pushed him to take his own life? He must have been very, very miserable ... and it saddens me even more that somewhere on this tiny island, another human being had been planning his own demise even as I was making merry at my friend's joyous wedding..