On betrayals of friends and forgiveness, translated…
This year, I’d gone often, to the hospitals, to visit Hsiu-Yu. Every time I saw her, lying there, unconscious, with her eyes closed tightly, in those diapers, like a ragdoll, getting turned over by the nurse’s aide, and needed to get her body cleaned by having someone wiping her down, and feeding too, my heart felt such immense pains. I’d thought, how can, someone deteriorate so fast, after just a few years of not seeing one another?
Hsiu-Yu and I were from the same town, we were classmates, and coworkers too, we are best friends who tell one another everything. Or maybe, it’s, because of how close we’d become, so, a lot of things happened, without ourselves knowing. A couple of years ago, she’d, stabbed me in the back, I was, angry and upset; ever since, we’d become, stranger, I’d refused to take her calls, and, not listened to her explanations, causing this crack between us to grow, to beyond repair.
I knew, that on this matter, my insistence on never talking to her, and accepting her apologies, had broken her heart. She’d once had a common friend relay her message to me, hoping I can, forgive her; but, I believe, that there’s nothing “unintentional” about what adults can do to each other, and, there’s, nothing to forgive. And, just like so, we’d become, kites, with the strings cut, not contacted one another, for several years on end.
These couple of years, with the coming of age, watched a lot of things happening in the lives of others, I’d slowly changed my views on a lot of the things. And, I’d, slowly, let go, of how my best friend had, cheated on me, with the man I loved. And now, I’d understood, that it took two to tango, that I shouldn’t, blame it all on her.
After I’d changed my thoughts, I’d gotten the chance to feel how close and kind Hsiu-Yu truly is. Every year around Dragon Boat Festival, she’d always drop her work, and find the leaves from the wild ginger lilies, to make the rice food items for me; when I’d needed to find a new job, she was, right there, giving me social and emotional support all the way. My lunch was often, prepared by her too; there would be a sunny side up inside the Chinese buns she’d brought for me for breakfast, with a small packet of peanuts, she’d told me, that it would taste even better this way.
Every time I’d thought about her kindness toward me, I’d wanted to, give her a call, tell her, “Let bygones be bygones! We are as we once were, best friends!”, but, I’d never, gotten the chances, to make this call.
not my artwork…
Unimaginably, at the start of this year, because of the complications from her cold, she’d become, comatose up until this day. Her son found my number on her contacts, and called me. Every time I’d, gone to visit her, I felt so much regret, for not telling her how I’d felt back then, so she could, feel more at ease. I knew, that she’d, cared about what she’d done to me, that, was why, she’d still, kept my number.
I think, a lot of the things you want to say, you should just, say it now, because once you’d, missed out on the opportunity, then, it’d become, guilt.
So, this, is on how two best friends became strangers, because of what one of them did to the other, and the woman took so long, to finally forgive her friend, and, her friend fell into a coma, and can’t respond to her best friend anymore, this showed, how you need to get what you need to say out now, instead of thinking that there’s going to be another chance, a later, because sometimes, there isn’t…