Knowing her has opened a lot of doors for me: from teaching me that the tiny rolls that she lits up every now and then are called 'ciggies' and not 'smoke' (my English was adorably bad), to putting up with my ranting on my new-found, non-air-conditioned existence when I first came to Singapore, to furiously correcting my grammar, to training me into being able to spar in harmless, venomous banters a.k.a every dining experience I had with her (the gorging on the food is always as important as the verbal mortal combat), to giving me a place to stay in when I had no place to go and was too young to sign my own contracts, to introducing me to 'character building', to treating me like a grown-up when I couldn't still distinguish my knee from my elbow, to saving my life once when I mindlessly jumped into the adult pool even though I didn't know how to swim (I was six or seven at the time), to taking me to Disneyland for the first time, and to believing that I could be anything and everything that I set my mind to-- and actually meaning it.
I do believe that once in a while, very rarely, we do meet people by whom we feel helplessly inspired. In her case, her extrovertedness always finds its way to make me come out of my shell a bit more-- actually, a lot more. Without saying a word she can make me speak up a lot more, make me articulate myself better and be mindful about what I think and say. Pacing her in a conversation is always a work-out; one after which I find myself mentally spent but a lesson I wouldn't trade for the world.
However, this breed of people do not come in abundance. They never do. They come in only for a snippet portion of our lives, and once they have done what the divine has set them out to do, they move on-- perhaps to share their gift with some other people some place else.
She is going back to Holland next month (after living here for over a decade), and perhaps we may only see each other once in a blue moon thereafter. Nonetheless, I am grateful that she has been a great influence on me growing up, and it felt amazing that she could be there to see me graduating from law school. She herself is a lawyer, and finally, she joked, we are in the same club. It feels really good that I can make her proud.
