Only difference is that he's not physically here to celebrate with us this year...and the years to come. It has been 8 months now since he left us for the pearly gates, but we've definitely not forgotten about his big day.
The day started early, with us gathering at Balestier for Bak Kut Teh. Quite a handful turned up, or should I say the usual bunch - Josh, Jason, Edmund, Raymond, Lim CK, Jenn, and of course, Joyce and myself. After breakfast, we visited him at his 'penthouse unit' at St. Michael's Church, where Chris Lim was already waiting when we reached.
Deep inside, I can really feel that everyone misses him a lot.. though we were mostly still joking and laughing away on the outside. I was joking about how Ah Buee dislikes pork, and our pungent smell from our pre-visit breakfast will capture his notice on our arrival... Well, one thing for sure, we all know he'll want us to stay as what we were before - fun and some what notorious...
The visit was brief... we went on separate ways after that while a few of us went to get the stuff for steamboat at my place in the evening. This steamboat thingy is our tradition that happens annually around X'mas period, usually at Josh's place. It started because the bunch of us just simply refuse to give in to expensive and commercialized X'mas meals...haha.
The crowd was just nice for the steamboat session... It was nice to have Bernardine (Ah Buee's girlfriend) to join us... I'm thinking.. maybe it's ah buee's will, cos Chris coincidentally bump into her when he visited him at the church in late afternoon, and invited her over. But we weren't so lucky in the 4D we bought that day(ah buee's 'unit no.'), obivously he didn't supported the idea.
Josh bought a cake to celebrate his birthday, with the word 'Happy 32 Jack'...We all cut the cake together, since he's not here. Ah Buee always buys us cakes for our birthdays before... its only right for us to get it for him now. Just hope that he didn't mind its not from Prego.
Happy Birthday, my friend!
