Regrets are futile (Sesal kemudian tidak berguna).

Tengah tunggu masa sesuei nak tido..

A dear friend of mine lost her mother two Sundays back. Maybe at that time she needed someone to talk to, so she called me that night about 5 mins to midnight.

Unknowingly to her, I was angry at my dear sister at that time. At that particular time when the phone rang, I was driving, and the phone was in my bag. It took me quite a time to rummage thru my bag for the phone (as it was quite distracting despite the awesome song I used for the ring tone). Then at that time I needed to shift gears, so what I did was I just threw the bag to my sis for her to get the phone from my bag. And just when she get a hold of my phone, the ringing stopped.

At the traffic light, I snatched the phone from her hands and saw my friend's name on the screen. And I called her back (while the light's still red). I detected something wrong from the tone of her voice, but what I did was, I told her that I was driving and will get back to her as soon as I reached home.

And I reached home. It didn't occur to me that I promised to give her a call back until 30 mins after midnight. "Oh craps," I said, and sent her a text message asking whether she's still awake or not. And she called me back. And we talked about her plans to move back to her hometown, plans to hang out together when we have time, something like that and some other non-fancy things. And yeah-uhuh-byebye-takecare. She sounded fine, I thought, but not as merry as before.

And last night while I was browsing thru my FB account, I saw her FB status update.

Fuzzy (the name has been changed to protect her identity, but you can see it in my FB) is missing her late mum. I could feel her presence still but I could never meet her again, I miss you so much, mak.

And I was totally in shock mode. When did this happen? I backtracked her profile in FB and FS. I even texted her. And there, the date. 24 Aug. Two Sundays back. And when I checked the last call she made to me, it was that same unfortunate date. I felt so guilty for not being there for her when she needed me the most. Well, might not be the most lar, but then I do think I was among the first who crossed her mind when she was so down at that time. And most importantly, why didn't I ask her last time if there's something wrong, right when I called her back on that day?

Deep down inside, I was crying. I feel like a bad person, who ignores a friend in need of my support.

ThE DeaTh aNd ThE StRaWBeRRy