That’s What Friends are For

I pressed `PLAY’ on the VCR, leaned back against the sofa and got ready to watch the tape.

The opening credits began – Memories of Redang…1st to 5th July 1997. For the next 140 minutes, I was transfixed, watching someone else’s version of my memory.

Dhalita, who came up with the idea to record our entire mini-break, came onscreen and said, “Say something lah, in 50 years when I watch this video, I want to know what we did today!”

Cheese, the self-appointed leader of our motley crew, obediently began to narrate the mundane, “This morning, we woke up, brushed our teeth, had breakfast…”.

I giggled. I’d forgotten he could be funny.

As I watched the video, I alternated between smiling, laughing, going “Haiyoh!” and slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand. Definitely not the reaction I was expecting from myself. I was almost enjoying reliving the events that happened on the trip so long ago. Every single time the faces of the people I used to love came onscreen, I expected my heart to contract a little, but it didn’t. Instead, I watched their young selves and smiled at the memory of the people they were, the people I knew.

I didn’t even remember that we had a thank you-gift giving ceremony for Leen who’d single-handedly organised the entire trip for all of us. But there we were on the screen and Leen had just accepted our gift of a super-comfortable pillow that she hugged the whole bus ride back. “Say something lah,” we urged. “Thank you,” she said into the camera. “I shy” and she hid her face with her brand new pillow. Typical Leen.

I surprised myself.

For all of 138 minutes, I didn’t shed one tear.

Then the montage came on in the 139th minute and Dionne Warwick’s `That’s What Friends Are For’ played in the background. As she reached the lyrics…

And if I should ever go away
Well, then close your eyes and try to feel
The way we do today
And then if you can remember

Keep smilin’, keep shinin’
Knowin’ you can always count on me, for sure
That’s what friends are for
For good times and bad times
I’ll be on your side forever more
That’s what friends are for

…I rested my head on my knee that I had bent to my chest and cried a little.

Not long after that trip, our motley crew drifted apart. I’m no longer on speaking terms with almost all of those people that I went to Redang with and I sometimes lie awake at night and wonder why. Now, whenever this song comes on the radio, I’m transported back to those carefree days and nights on the island and a tiny, tiny part of me wishes that I could be with all of them for all their good times and bad, to be on their side forever more and to show them that that’s what friends are for.