The Meeting Of Long Lost Friends

On Monday night, I received an SMS from a friend and former classmate that another friend would be in Penang until Wednesday. My adolesence years were spent in JB in a boarding school. There were 36 students in my class of Form Five T of '76. We had 3 Noraini's in the class. To differenciate we called each one with their fathers' name. They are NI, from Perlis, NS from Perak and NMI from KL. When my friend SMSed me to say that S (NS's father's name) I knew who she meant. There was one time when one of our friends called NMI using her father;s name so spontaneously without realizing that the father was present. The pak cik actually looked at my friend but he was sporting enough to smile at the red-faced teenager.

NS is working with the National Carrier and she was in Penang to interview flight attendants. I called her to confirm where she was staying and how long she would be in Penang. I ended up making arrangement for a meeting with her on Tuesday evening after work.

As I was driving home before going to meet NS, another friend who is staying in Kulim AMN called me to say that she would be joining me to see NS. I did not ask her along thinking that she might have been busy. So I suggested that she parked her car at the Seberang Jaya hospital and we would be going together to see NS.

We arrived at around 7.00 pm at the hotel. NS and AMN had not met for 29 years. Imagine that. I had not met NS for almost 10 years myself. She doesn't change that much we can recognise her straight away. We hugged for along time, the 3 of us. We didn't know how much we missed each other until that time when we hugged. So much time had passed and now we all long to see each other again.

We prayed Maghrib prayer at her hotel room and then drive all the way to Batu Feringhi for dinner. We talked and remebered the old time we spent in the school. Talked about our classmate and where they are right now. We do not have all of their contact numbers but from what we know the friend MM (who SMSed me) has 21 names in her collection. NS told us that she and another 7 friends attended the reunion recently held at the Legend. Those who attended decided that a reunion for 5T 76 is long overdue (29 years to be exact!!). They are trying to organise a reunion of our own one these days. AMN and I are agreable almost in unison. Told NS that, there is no problem for me, AMN and MM (our information database friend) to come to KL for the function. We will all drive together on any Saturday and we can come back on Sunday. we even called a friend in JB to talk to her and she was so excited at the same time envied us. We yak and yak until the restaurant almost closed. I had to tell them, let's go they are closing already. We said our goodbyes at NS's hotel entrance with tears in our eyes. I eventually reach home at midnight that night. It was areally good meeting a friend after such a long time.

Last night, Wednesday, I was online with another long lost friend. She was my super duper senior from the same boarding school. She was in upper six when I was in form1. How i got connected to her? This is the wonder of blogging and the internet. She is in the US and I am in Malaysia and we meet again on the net!!!.

This sister Kak M, who was originally from my neighbouring kampung, meaning we are from the same hometown. We have definitely had shared the same train when we were travelling to the boarding school. We had met before when I was at the Univ, since she organised a reunion at one time and I did attend it with MM. She was asking me so many names that I had to call MM to clarify. MM is someone who knew and still remember almost all the students in the school. So, there I was on the YM with Kak M and on the mobile with MM. MM doesn't have a YM, I have persuaded her to install and she had given me very unacceptable excuses (unacceptable to me that is). I "talked" to Kak M for sometime and time flies I did not realised that it was almost midnight. After the chatting session was over between me and Kak M, Atenah was online and wanted me to lend her my ears, so it was after 1 am that I got to sleep.

Although I have made new friends, on and off the net, I still realised that I missed all my old friends, I do hope I would be able to see them soon.