Thursday, October 16, 2008

a departure

“Should we visit him during the Raya holidays?” I asked.

“Will it be jam on the highway heading up north?”

“Oh yeah… I bet everyone’s travelling! But what if we make it a day-trip, say on the second or third day of Raya?” I reasoned.

“We’ll see… I think there will be high volumes of people travelling throughout that entire weekend”.

And so we never went to visit him at the hospital.

We didn’t go the week after as well.

Then another friend called. He’s not able to orally ingest food anymore.

And so we decided on a trip to visit him the coming weekend, on 18 October.

That never materialized too.

We got a call at about 6pm on 14 October, saying that he had just passed away.

The funeral was held yesterday, at his home in Batu Gajah, Perak.

As I looked at him for the very last time yesterday, I silently reprimanded myself for not making it to visit him earlier.

I should have. That is really all I can say. We should fucking have.

Kar Wai has been fighting a cancer in his brain for almost three years. This dude, he’s a fighter. Most people last a year or two, at most. But him, he never gave up.

Guess he was really tired in the end.

Dear, dear Kar Wai… you’re on your own now. We’ll miss you. Rest in peace, bro.


Forever Remembered…

Chew Kar Wai

20 July '79 – 14 October '08

Posted by Doreen at 5:23 pm