#28 Gone

Weeks since my last email to you, months since your last posting, even more months since I last heard from you at all.

I presume - you must be gone.

I guess we never got to say goodbye. But then again, we never got to say hello either. We remained strangers till the very end. I tried googling for you. I tried all sorts of key words, but couldn't find anything. All I have is your anonymous emails, a thumbnail picture of you, and a chat history where you told me your secrets.
Yes, that's how this all started didn't it? You read my secrets. And you invited me to read yours. And we became these two anonymous strangers who shared secrets with one another. You said you prefered the anonymity. You said it made you free to express yourself with no inhibitions. What I didn't tell you was that I couldn't do it. I couldn't get to know you more and more and still be kept at one corner like a stranger. You wanted me to be your anonymous confidant, your online lover, your boyfriend that you'd never meet. For many reasons, I couldn't do it. While it is true at the beginning that all I wanted was a scandal or fling, like I told you later, all I really wanted was to be your friend.

When you told me you were dying, I immediately asked to meet you. You said no. Instead you sent me a picture of you, with your real name. Maybe you thought it would just complicate your life even more. I respected that. But I hope you know, all I really wanted to do was to meet you and talk to you, even if just for a little while in person. I needed to see you in the flesh, so that this virtual friendship, short as it may be, could translate to reality.

Did you worry that I might try to make you fall for me? I wasn't going to. Did you worry that you'd fall for me anyway? You wouldn't have. I could tell that you were still in love with your ex lover. It was one of the things we shared in common after all.

Whatever it was, its over now. Thank you for what you shared with me, for telling me a bit of your life's story - your illness, your father, your lover. It is tragic that kind souls like you lived such short lives. You baffled me with you attachment to you ex, but you amazed me with you bravery in death.

I promised you back then that I'd remember you. Even if it's just a name and a thumbnail picture, I still intend to.

The silent sufferer,
selfless soul,
worry no more,
about the troubles of this world.