Reach written by Diane Eve Warren, Gloria Estefan

Some dreams live on in time, forever
Those dreams, you want with all your heart
And I’ll do whatever it takes
Follow through with the promise I made
Put it all on the line
What I hoped for at last would be mine

If I could reach, higher
Just for one moment touch the sky
From that one moment in my life
I’m gonna be stronger
Know that I’ve tried my very best
Put my spirit to the test
If I could reach

Some days are meant to be remembered
Those days we rise above the stars
So I’ll go the distance this time
Seeing more the higher I climb
That the more I believe
All the more that this dream will be mine

If I could reach, higher
Just for one moment touch the sky
From that one moment in my life
I’m gonna be stronger
Know that I’ve tried my very best
I’d put my spirit to the test
If I could reach

If I could reach, higher
Just for one moment touch the sky
From that one moment in my life
I’m gonna be stronger
I’m gonna be so much stronger yes I am
I’ve tried my very best
I’d put my spirit to the test

A few days back when I was compiling some informations on Rabindranath Tagore, I came upon one very inspiring quotation by him. It goes, “I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can’t make it through one door, I’ll go through another door – or I’ll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.”

What is installed for you in another door? That, I have no answer for you. With another door, there are always uncertainties and new challenges associating with it. No one can even give you the guarantee that things will be better and no one can tell you that things will be worse either. You may have to go through more than one door. However, like standing in wet cement, if we stand long enough in it, we will get stuck in it.

Like Helen Keller’s quotation, “… often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” Are we missing the opened doors too?

Just as the day will eventually break the darkness of the night, another door will eventually bring us new lease of life. Let us have the faith as what Rabindranath Tagore said, “Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.”

They were having a farewell party at the pub and everyone was drinking and catching up for the last time before going their separate way. It had gone to a point whereby some were getting emotional and were weeping. In that moment, someone said, “Don’t cry – everyone will be friends forever.” Yes. That is true to certain extent and only for a few. I particularly agree with the author’s point of view that ‘keeping in touch with someone you can’t see and hear takes energy and imagination that few have.‘ If you and the person you are keeping in touch with believe in this. There will be a good chance to be friends forever. Otherwise, one will find it challenging even to find time to send an email. Friends forever – it is possible when both sides make time and effort plus a right portion of expectation. In fact, what is being said here can be applied to most relationships. In order to make a relationship work, it takes a good amount of communication but you will need to find time and to put in the effort to communicate in the first place.

Well, the key thing in the article that caught my attention was not how to be friends forever but rather in a statement that Janice wrote ‘You can’t take today with you.‘ What immediately came across my mind when I was reading it is that the statement makes a lot of positive sense. It reminds me of a quotation by Helen Keller.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens: but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

How often have you come across someone who told you that he/she had just broken up? Most initial response will be, “You will find someone new.” And isn’t that true for most people … eventually? The ones that never found someone new, most probably they never allowed themselves to start looking again after they went through unhappy relationships.

The underlying issue is that some people tend to hold on to the broken relationships longer than they should have. A question which I read in some books with a little modification, “If you knew that you would win the game by doing your best, how would you play the game?” For sure you would have played it confidently and have given it your best shot. The same rule can be applied here, “If you knew that you would meet someone new eventually, would you leave the closed door as soon as it closed and start to look for another open door.

For one who believes that thing always happened for a reason, he/she will not have any challenges of moving on. You may ask me, “For what reason it happened?” What I can say is that we may not always see the reason immediately when it happened but when we do, it will be like “Ahem, so that’s why!” And sometimes we may not even realise the reason.

Naturally, life won’t be the same when we let go of what is already gone. However, I could not have put it more aptly than Janice that, ‘different doesn’t have to mean worse.’ It is not a guarantee always that different will be good when you chose to let go. But it is a sure guarantee that life ‘stop’ when you continue to hold on to what is already gone. Like the farmer ploughing in the field, there is never a guarantee of a good harvest. The farmer knew that he/she has to continue to plough if he/she wants a harvest and like the law of seed, the more he/she plough, the chances of a good harvest increase. It is when the ploughing gets the tougher, it means that the harvest is nearer. Just like the say, “when the night is the darkest, it means that soon the day will break.”

We can’t take today with us … so we have to continue to move forward with the faith that tomorrow will be better and a lot of times, it really depends on ourselves to make tomorrow better. I wish goodness in everyday of your life and that you will have the courage to move forward fearlessly.

I never thought I could ever get over the death of Julia. She is everything in my life, and she is even more important than myself. The time she spent in the hospital was the most painful moment in our life. I knew that she feels a great deal of pain incurred by the cancerous cells in her body, but she never once shown the pain in front of me; this, I have always believed that she was trying to prevent me from seeing her suffers so that I will not feel sad.

For me, every time I got to see her, I was worried that that might be the very last time I would be seeing her; so I treasure every moment I spent with her. Every time when I visited her in the hospital, I would hold her hand and then we would just chat and act like everything was normal.

Many would have thought that we are running away from reality. We never were. We just love each other so deeply so that we did not want to see the other party being sad. It would be very difficult for me to describe how we felt, you have to feel it yourself to know exactly what I mean by that.

The day I lost her to cancer … it still lives so vividly in my mind; I could never forget the way she struggled to breath the last breathe. The pain must be killing her. It really hurts me to see her suffered. How I wished I could bear part, if not all her pain she had to undergo. But the only thing I could do was to watch her losing her battle to death. I held on to her hand as usual until she left … without me.

The very next moment she was gone, I just didn’t know what to do with myself … didn’t know just what to do. I was so used to doing everything with her and making plan for two. Suddenly, I felt lost. There was no light to guide me. She was not only a guide but had been my closest soul companion. The first thing that came to my mind then was to leave this place with her; I can’t bear to let her go on this journey alone or should I say I can’t leave without her. And so, I tried to follow her. But I am glad that I live till today. She would never have agreed to the idea of me going with her; she would have wanted me to carry on with my life.

I am grateful to John for discovering my act of foolishness. He sent me to a psychiatrist shortly after that incident, saying that I needed professional help. I didn’t want to argue with him then, and so I just go for the therapy.

The therapy didn’t help a bit. I could not live a normal life. I could not get Julia out of my mind. Everything I do, her images would be there. Somehow, subconsciously, she seems pretty much alive to me. I could see her making breakfast every alternate morning and when it was my turn to make breakfast, I would always make an extra set for her. I could also see her cutting the grasses and tending to our garden of roses besides me every weekend.

And she would still sit by my side to watch sunset with me every evening. All this I never tell anyone; all they would say would be,” she is dead already and you are probably having illusions.” Maybe the main reason why I never tell anyone is that I can’t accept the fact that they’re right, she’s dead.

All these things carry on for two to three years. During that period, I even played the game we invented together called ‘Connection’. Whenever anyone of us wants to talk, the party whom initiated would say: “connect?” then the other party will say: “connected’. Every time, I would imagine her saying “connected” and I would start to tell her all the things I had done and how much I had missed her.

It went on for two to three years until … I not quite sure what actually hits me, but one night, she appeared in my dreams and we talked about lots of things, and I can’t wait to tell her all the things I did. Suddenly, she held on to my hand, looked me in my eyes and with tears in her eyes, she said,” Ben, please wake up, I’m dead already. It hurts me, more than you know, knowing that you are wasting your time. Please, for my sake, wake up.” I woke up crying in my bed that morning, realizing how foolish I actually am. And I started to live my life once again.

I realized that it hurts a lot to see the one that we love so dearly passed away, and it’s never easy to get over someone whom had once shared our life. But getting over someone doesn’t mean forgetting that person. We place them close to us, here in our heart to always remember them. And whenever we think of them, we will just reach into our heart for the image of them. In so doing, they live forever. But the most important things would be for us to carry on with our life so as not to disappoint them.