Birthday Outing to the Wetland Reserves

I started a Whatapp chat group recently and invited a few colleagues to join in.  Those with an ear for music, and I know a number of our staff who love to sing. Like me, quite a few could also strum or pick a guitar. We also have a violinist, a ukuleleist and a pianist but sadly, missing a drummer. Not quite a full-fledged band as yet, at best a motley crew of music wannabes.  But we have a decently well-equipped music studio at our campus set up for the student music clubs that we could gather for jamming sessions. It’s one of the few perks of working in an education outfit.

So last Friday we got together for our first jamming session. It went well enough. Prior to the music meet-up I had arranged for our IT colleagues to set up a flat TV screen in the studio. With that, we could beam up lyrics and musical chords called from the internet so everyone present could sing along. It was a much welcomed enhancement to the studio. Our HR was urging staff to start up all sorts of interest groups to add some buzz to our work life and help staff to bond better. So I was just doing my part.  And our music interest jamming group went off to a fine start.

So my work life, along with its humdrum of meetings and appointments have enough bright moments to help lift me from being oppressively sad. Colleagues, busy as they may be are often all smiles and jovial. I cannot ask for better ones to work with. But I sometimes wonder if they could see through the mask I wear. The sadness that I try to hide. It should not be hard to call my bluff, me not being the poker-face type.

Yet, I am sometimes troubled that of late, noone has asked me how I am getting along. With this new widowered life of mine.  Or coping with my loss.  As if, after more than a year, I should have totally recovered and adjusted. As if, reminding me of the painful past is the uncool and inconsiderate thing to do. But then again, could I fault them for this? What would they know, not having walked this path of misery and grief?

Last Saturday, 11^th of June was Jenny’s birthday.  My old school-mates and I, some 6 of us had weeks ago arranged to get together early in the morning for an outdoor walk at the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserves. It is a splendid natural mangrove forest with mudflats and walking trails that attracts migratory birds of all plumage, winging across the globe to stop by for their yearly seasonal visits.  But my old school-mates have little affinity for feathered creatures as far as I know.  We were merely looking for a place to meet and the wetland reserve, tucked away at a remote corner of our island with its interesting biodiversity, gave us a good reason for a brief reunion. 

Part of the walking trail in the Wetland reserve park

Mudflats surrounding the Wetland reserves

 

This group of friends is probably my oldest of acquaintances.  We shared our teen-age years of growing-up pains together. Now, of a greater age, with greying hairline, wrinkles and droopy jowls, we could barely recognise each other. “If I bump upon you in the streets I wouldn’t know it is you”, my old class buddy V remarked matter-of-factly, while flashing his trademark toothy grin. Some of us have not changed as much.

With the morning sun scorching down, we strolled through the shaded mangrove forest, reminiscing and nostalgizing on old times. A couple of my old class-mates had attended Jenny’s funeral wake and the word has gone round earlier, so my widower status was not unknown to the others. But not unexpectedly, none of my old friends brought up the matter of Jenny’s demise. The conversations steered clear of asking how I might be coping with my new life or how my kids are coping without their mother. They probably thought they are doing me a favour by not raising up the subject of my bereavement and thereby avoid reminding me of my loss. It was the kind and civic thing to do, so it appeared. Death is just not the right thing to talk about. Not on a beautiful day like this. It would spoil the mood and put me into an emotional nosedive.

Or would it?

All but one of my ex-schoolmates came by himself.  The others had their wives or spouse, hand in hand in tow. I have no quarrel with that. On a rare Saturday morning outing to the Wetland reserves, which loving husband would leave his partner behind, unless she insisted on sleeping in and giving the occasion a miss. It was an opportunity to rekindle old friendships and certainly getting acquainted with their loved ones is part of the process. But I must confess feeling awfully deprived. My sense of loss, that all too familiar chasm of grief was deepening. But I braved myself and stayed cheerful, putting aside my selfish pride. I could not be expecting my friends to have left their spouses at home just so I would not feel so “left out”.  It would be ridiculous for them to even think about it.

But I did wonder long and hard if Jenny would have joined me on an early morning outing such as this. Like most of my friends’ better halves. If she was still alive.  Jenny with her need to sleep in on Saturdays and her general abhorrence for perspiration. “It will be so hot and humid and we will be donating blood to the mosquitoes. Plus, I need my beauty sleep”, she has grumbled more than once when I insisted that she joined me for a park outing.

But once again my wandering thoughts are akin to a broken pencil – totally pointless. Jenny’s not tucked under her blanket for me to rudely awaken to be persuaded for an early morning walk to meet old school-mates.  I could only show up solo as my friends had expected me to.

Anyway, coincidentally the day was Jenny’s birthday. She would have been 58 years old. But she would not look a day older.

Later in the day, her sister sent me a picture of her niche, adorned with a new stalk of flower (a  tulip?) and a birthday greeting card. I did not drop by the columbarium to visit her niche. I did not feel the need to. A birthday is just another day and Jenny is always in my heart. Quietly, she was by my side as we strolled hand in hand amid the flora and fauna of the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. I got her to wake up this time.

Happy Birthday Honey.