brothers

growing up in singapore during my teenage years had always meant me being one of the guys in my cell group.

maybe it was God's funny little way of balancing a life in an all girls' school with a lack of females in my church group.

whatever it was, i had five non blood-related brothers whom i will always look fondly upon despite the fact that life has led us down vastly different paths. they built me up in their own ways and were each a blessing for a certain period of my life.

meeting up with all of them today over tennis and pizza just reminded me alot about my secondary school days and the social interactions i had then. these people made up one of my core groups whilst growing up.

and now this is when i get all horribly sentimental


max was always the neighbour brother. the one i teased and mocked. the one who infuriated me, but the one whom i enjoyed hanging out with the most. it was and is a fantastic platonic friendship that continues today even though dynamics have changed. whatever it is man, i always look forward to meeting up with you come summer. you are my dependable brother in some sense.

weijun was the gentle brother. the one who taught me how to listen. in a way sometimes, i think i wasn't sure what to do in our relationship. it was a relationship built on sharing the personal and yet i think in our adolescence, we or at least i was always too eager or too quick to want to find a solution to any hurdle that came in life. if anything, i think he showed me a lot of grace whilst growing up. and i will always appreciate our walks and talks home.

samuel was my spiritual brother, the brother i looked up to whilst growing up. somebody whom i guess at some point, i wanted to model my life after. seeing him all fired up for God when we were teenagers, watching him struggle to understand what was truth for him; in a lot of ways i think sam always inspired me and i guess life would have been different without him around.

ryan is my pick-up-as-we-go-along brother. and that sounds like a mouthful. i guess possibly what i mean by that is that our friendship is defined by gaps and meet-ups. nonetheless, there was always some instant intimacy, pal-lyness that naturally springs up no matter how long we've been away. whether it's ridiculous conversation about falling leaves outside my window or serious sharing about life. ryan is my comfortable brother, someone who has a knack at making anyone feel at ease with him. and i appreciate the honesty and natural concern he brings with him.

finally, mark. mark will always be my favourite brother. despite my constant nagging at him, my continued exasperation at his avid love for anime and computer games, the fact that we are actually distant in the sense that we sometimes have no clue what the other is dealing with or walking through in life; i know that i will always look upon mark fondly as my brother. maybe it's because we've known each other since we were eight years old, when he used to terrorise me in our younger years in the playground, and i, in turn, terrorised him in our teenage years; but mark is almost a blood brother to me and i think that's the way it will stay.


i don't think our relationships are what they were in the past. but meeting up today made me grateful for the way each of them was present then.

thanks bros.