cinderella can not eat. wise people say that when the elderly cannot eat, their time is near. it's inevitable, we all know. she has been claiming that she is going to die for more than a decade now and yet she had lived strong. now, suddenly we don't hear her profess as often, but her thin body says it all.

whenever i receive news such as this, i always ask myself the same question: has she ever been close to me, as if to summarise all our interaction in a lifetime with but one answer, and to gauge how much it will hurt this time. as if it can be so easily foretold. she was somebody to me, yes, but she wasn't exactly the type i fantasised. she never held me by the hand and led me to the park, never spent hours telling me stories, both fabled and real, she never bothered about my life, never asked beyond 'where are they now' and she never knew me at all. but still, she was somebody to me. she brought me cookies and candies whenever she visited, and i think she was the best somebody to me in the way that she knew how.

the last year has been less than lucid, and answers were as readily replaced by the same questions, again and again. yet i did not feel the tinge of annoyance like all others. i don't know why. i just felt comforted. perhaps, sitting there beside her, i could sense her grasping on, trying to still care, trying to hold on to the meaning of our words. and perhaps it was because she WAS still seating there beside me, in flesh and blood, and i could touch her cold hands that it felt right. i just wished that others had loved her as much and was as kind to her. it will only be too soon before their turn will come. if only others can also understand that, and spare the harsh loud words, and look at her one more time before she is gone. if only they can remember what she had done, her kind words, her generosity, her love, and smiled at her one more time, held her hand one more time before the sun sets.