I am sleep-deprived.
Unfortunately I can get quite snappy when that happens.

URV 7-10 see post 0330

+++

哥哥 died a year ago today.

His jumping off the Mandarin Hotel in HK was all over on TV. The news of his death was so alien that when Auntie told me, I just stood there and huh? what? stupidly while Monet said something along the lines of "April's Fool joke is it..."

I'd felt terrible. Especially because I'd a friend who jumped to her death when she was barely seventeen. She was my 'angel' in the angel-and-guardian game my form teacher made us play when we were in sec sch. I couldn't hold back my tears as I stood there in my school uniform watching the priest do the rituals and her mother crying herself to bits at the sides. She had to be held by her daughter and son. The sight still bites at me when I think of it now.

Time doesn't erase or lessen the pain; it just numbed it. Those who hold 哥哥 close and dear are definitely still much saddened by his passing. I don't ever want to lose my loved ones like this... abruptly,... and deliberately. It's selfish. And I would probably hate them for it.

Childish, yes, but justified.