Cedric's wedding was held at a hotel in Singapore. A small seating area and stage was set up for the couple to have the ROM ceremony, and then followed by a buffet dinner by the pool side. The wedding was simple yet beautiful.
Cedric is one of my good friends from high school. Our group of friends used to be really close and meet up almost every week. But just like many other people, our gathering became less and less frequent over the years, as we were all busy with our own lives. After spending most of our days working, we don't even have enough time for our families, let alone friends. And so, friends drift apart, or even lost sometimes. I guess this is the fact of life. Sad but true.
I would want to think that our group of friends are still close in our hearts even though we don't see so much of each other anymore. At least it is so to me. No matter how far they are in distance, or how infrequent we meet up, they are always the best friends i would and will ever have in my life. I will meet new friends in the future for sure, but none could ever be the same like them. They were a piece of my young and innocent years, devoid of all the ugliness, deceit and evil of the grown-up world.
During the past one year, Cedric had been absent from most of our gatherings, which were already getting infrequent. I must confess that i was rather disappointed, thinking that he didn't regard us as the good friends like how we regarded him. Sometimes i even wondered if having a girlfriend should really equate to abandoning the old friends. Yes, i did feel a certain unhappiness because of his apparent detachment from the group.
But then, sometimes what appears to be obvious may not be the truth. The truth was revealed on Sunday night during his wedding. After going around toasting at each table, he came back to our table and chatted with us. Then all of a sudden, he wept and told us how sorry he was for not spending time with us for the past one year. We were all shocked at his sudden outburst of emotion. It might be the alcohol at work because his face and neck were all red after all the drinking, but i believe the words were sincerely from his heart.
I had never seen Cedric cried before. Despite being a rather emotional person, he is, after all, a guy and would never shed a tear in front of us. When i saw tears rolling down his cheeks uncontrollably on his wedding night, i felt my heart ridden with guilt and grief. It was his big day and he should be smiling all the way. Yet, he was crying because he felt sorry for not being a good friend to us. Now that he has become a married man and his wife is a Singaporean, he probably foresaw that he would have even lesser time for us in the future and wouldn't be able to attend most of our gatherings held in JB.
It was wrong of me to think that a friend whom i've known for almost 18 years didn't have us in his heart at all. I guess i haven't been as good a friend myself for doubting him. I was too quick to judge, as always. He does hold us at an important place in his heart, and he cherishes us as much as we cherish him as a friend. I should be happy for him that he has found his love and happiness, but i was equally sad thinking about what he had foreseen would most probably come true. I'm not sure if family and friends must be mutually exclusive, but there're bound to be trade-offs in our choices and everything we do in life. In a way, life is always fair. We gain some, we lose some; we just can't have it all.
I sincerely repent for what i had thought of him. I wish him a blissful life and eternal happiness.
Labels: friendship
