Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

It has been quite a relaxed period of time in camp these few weeks so on one exceptionall boring night I decided to write a short story. Been ages since I wrote a short story. Hopefully my writing skills haven't turned too rusty. Of course, it is purely fictional. Haha..
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"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven". I softly counted to myself as I laid beside my wife who was fast asleep after a tiring day at work. There were seven luminous neon-coloured stars pasted on the ceiling surface. The ornamental stars were a beautiful sight to behold and were a consolation on this star-less night. Alas, it has been seven long years since our beloved Madeline left us for the embrace of God. Yet my yearning for her has only grown stronger. Afterall, who could so callously forget her?

Madeline was our first child, a beautiful lovable girl who was God's greatest gift to my wife and me. She had black round eyes that twinkled like the stars and a smile that would light up even the gloomiest day. Whenever my wife or me returned from work, she never failed to give us a hug and a peck on our cheek. She often left me wondering what good deeds did I ever do to deserve a bundle of joy like her.

Maybe God did decide afterall that I did not deserve such joy. Just as Madeline turned 5 years old, her health began to fail her. Though she continued to shower us with her daily hugs and kisses, the colour was noticeably absent from her once rosy cheeks. We brought her to a hospital to have her examined and that was when God's callous verdict was read to us. Madeline had leukemia and it was at a terminal stage. Even the doctors were shocked at how the symptoms only surfaced at such an advanced stage. We were told that chemotherapy had limited palliative effects for her and would only put her through more pain and suffering. Madeline had only six more months to live.

Devastation, despair, grief, none of these could even describe a hundredth of how we felt. Even as my wife and I were reeling from the shock, we were even more at a loss at how to break the news to Madeline. How were we to tell her that she was going to leave us? As we left the doctor's room, Madeline once again threw herself into my embrace and planted a kiss on my cheek. I was weak then and I allowed a stream of tears to slide down my cheek. Madeline gently wiped away my tears with her tiny fingers and just as gently whispered into my ears "Please don't cry Daddy". As I held her tighter into my embrace, my wife edged me with her elbow reminding me to keep myself in check in our daughter's presence. I forcefully withdrew my tears and carried little Madeline to the car.

The journey home was exceptionally quiet. Afterall, we didn't know what to say. As I glanced at the rear mirror to see what Madeline was doing, Madeline finally broke the deadly silence. "Am I sick? Am I going to die?" Two questions, eight words, but that was more than I could take. I immediately halted the car and pulled little Madeline into my embrace. My wife also broke down and hugged her while we both burst into tears. The only thing I could manage to utter was "Sorry Madeline, I'm really sorry". As her black twinkling eyes rolled for a moment, Madeline patted us on our heads softly and said "Its alright, I love you all". There was no need for us to break the news to her, our tears spoke everything.

During the course of the next few months, Madeline's health visibly ebbed from her little stature every day. Her complexion deteoriorated from pale to ghastly and she grew tired easily. Yet, she still managed to muster the strength to shower us with her classic hugs and kisses. To us, they were the strength for us to push on. Yet many a time we were unable to bear the pain and collapsed together in tears when Madeline wasn't looking.

One day when we were playing with Madeline, she suddenly said "When I die, I want to become a star and always look over Daddy and Mummy". After which, she planted a kiss on my wife's and my cheek. Then she continued "I want to give Daddy and Mummy more kisses while I still can so they can always be happy". She proceeded to alternate kisses on my wife and me and as she did so, our brave front melted into nothingness. Tears trickled down our faces without the slightest sign of stopping and we hugged her tightly as though we were afraid she would leave us that very instant.

Weeks later, Madeline did leave us after all. Yet throughout the entire six months, she never once cried even when she was the one going through all the pain. When she left us, she mustered the last of her strength to give my wife and I a kiss before passing away with a smile on her face. She was really a brave girl, a Madeline that was a hundred times stronger than her parents.

My wife and I decided to donate all her organs away. Madeline would have wanted that being the sweet little girl she was. She brought sight back to a fine gentleman with her corneas, spared a lady and old man the pain of dialysis with her kidneys and bestowed a little child a new lease of life with her heart.

Every year on Madeline's death anniversary, my wife and I would paste a luminous, neon-coloured star on our ceiling in memory of our beloved daughter. Her kisses and hugs are etched deeply into our hearts and they speak of a legacy of strength and love.

"Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky"

We love you Madeline......
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Obviously this story is fictional because I don't have a wife not to mention a daughter. I was inspired to write this after reading of a boy who was born with "half a heart" and was given 3 days to live but he survived for 15 years before passing away. Life is such a fragile thing.....

Strength to go on

I had the honour of having a discussion with a friend of mine on some issues of the heart. He told me he wanted to find a soulmate, someone whom he could really relate to and share his problems with. Haiz.. Who wouldn't want to find this special someone?

How I wish I could really find a soulmate too, someone to be my pillar of strength, a shoulder I could cry on, just somebody who could not tell me to stop crying but to just be there and hear me cry. I always believed that it was best if I share the joy with my friends but keep the sorrow for myself because often, the amount of sorrow that corrodes my soul is so large that it shocks even myself. I never want my friends to be affected by my sorrow and be sad too. I only want for them to be happy.

Yet my friend told me that I was wrong. A soulmate would want to share my sorrows. Even if at the end of the day nothing is solved, he just wants to know what I am going through. Slowly but surely he convinced me and I too started to hope for a soulmate. Yet at the same time I prayed that nobody would be so unfortunate to become that someone who had to share my sorrows. Now I hold that glimmer of hope that one day I might really find a soulmate. But do I really deserve one? With all that burden and pain and all that I have done, do I really deserve a special someone? Do I deserve this pillar of strength to press on in my life through all the tribulations and pain, sorrow and despair? I really don't know and I don't want to think about it. The very thought of this scares me. The only thing I can say is "Please, let me at least hold on to that hope".