48 hours.

Last Friday, Ms. Low, being our boarding mistress, was down at roll call for the usual announcements. Well, it was the tutor's job, but she was there anyway. Heck, she is always there and she never fails to bring with her her 24/7-smiley face. She made our supposed "home away from home" a real one. With her little acts of kindness everyday, she became the family in RIB we never had and she made boarding life so much easier for us.

Here's the thing:

48 hours ago, Ms. Low was brought to the hospital by ambulance for reasons unclear.

I know you don't know her and you probably don't even care. It's such a pity that you've never met her because she's the most altruistic person I've ever met. She does things not because she has to, but because she wants to. She cares. She cares about me, she cares about the boarders and she prolly would care about you even if she met you only once.

24 hours ago, we found out that Ms. Low was in the hospital for reasons still unclear. Apparently she would be there for awhile, but she was doing fine.

Yes. We spent 24 hours thinking that all was well. Again, yes. It's not like we could have done anything anyway... But it's funny 'cause she would always take the time to find out more about you and how you were doing... "How was school? :)", "How were your exams? :)" and "Just after training? :)" were the usuals and I miss it already. It was her first year in boarding, the year I came in (last year)... Come to think about it, I really do wish I took the time to find out more about her and how she was doing as well.

6 hours ago, during training, some Raffles Girls' Secondary (RGS) girls were talking about a teacher being admitted to the hospital due to stroke.

Could it be her? Ms. Low is an English teacher at RGS, and just yesterday, we discovered that she was hospitalized. So, could it be her? Could it be so coincidental? No... It couldn't have been. Ms. Low has always been the healthy one. "She's a squasher and squashers are supposed to be fit," as Muzhi quotes. In fact, Ms. Low frequently got Muzhi's class healthy tidbits and Muzhi would frequently ask her why weren't there any unhealthy snacks. How ironic it was that she was the one in the hospital, instead of me. I'm the one lagging on my 2.4(km run) and I'm the one with the unhealthy eating habits. Sure, we boarders had our fair share of "I left some Hershey chocolates in the pantry for you girls, help yourselves! :)" too, thanks to Ms. Low, but that doesn't change the fact that she was fit as a fiddle. She was supposed to be...

1 hour ago, there was an "urgent meeting" in the games room / common room. All the big names of boarding was there and obviously, it wasn't going to be good. The head of boarding told us that Ms. Low has been in the ICU for the past 2 days. She had a seizure, or in other words, a haemorrhage stroke. It was a critical stage and her husband, Mr. Liao, has yet to return to boarding. He's been by her side since the incident.

Everyone was pretty much in shock, everyone was pretty much sick in the stomach and everyone basically had the right to be. It all came as a bad bad bad surprise to every single one of us and we, boarders and tutors alike, were all affected by the news. Immediately after, we started pouring our hearts onto little notes for Ms. Low... The little things like how she would put smilies on our blue forms (aka leave application form) and how she would tell us to enjoy ourselves while we were out were all there. She was more than a just another staff, she was a great friend. She brought her job as a boarding mistress down to a personal level, which is so so so hard to come by these days. As a teacher/person, she doesn't discriminate against scholars, which is also pretty uncommon in Singapore as well. Ms. Low genuinely cares about us. She made us Moor girls a family and she impacted our lives in many ways unthinkable, and yet, I didn't even get her anything. So, I thought I'd make fortune cookies with personalized notes for her as a small gesture of appreciation during the weekends. That was something to look forward to...

Later that night, she left us.

It wasn't until morning assembly when most of us found out. That was 8 hours later and it was through all sorts of manner; If it wasn't the teachers, it was SMSes from friends or calls from ex-RGS teachers. How I stumbled across that really awful news was when I saw my friends crying. As in, a teacher approached them, and then they started crying. It was right at that moment, I figured. With a simple but cruel nod, it was confirmed. Words cannot describe how it felt but what I can say is that it was really really crappy. We didn't even have time to come to terms with the fact that she fell seriously ill and just like that, she was gone.

Fact: Did I mention she's still in the prime of her life? She's 33.

Going for lectures, while in denial, while attempting to hold back the tears was probably the hardest thing to do for most. Of course, the worst part was and still is the fact that she was gone, so unexpectedly, and there's nothing you can do about it. It just didn't make sense. It all happened too fast! Just last night, I was anticipating her return, but no... life just had to be so tragic. And you look around you, all of them being uninformed non-boarders, went on with life and the world as if nothing was wrong. Well, it's true. Nothing was wrong for them because they never knew Ms. Low. It kinda pisses me off because at that point in time, I just wished that the world would stop for a moment to see how much we're losing here. While a part of me feels that she's probably going to a better place without H1N1 or 2012 to worry about, I still selfishly feel that a passing of someone like her is like the passing of 100 kind souls that should not have happened. Yee Won said this redefines unfairness and I couldn't agree more.

Random Fact: I feel like a fool, being an avid photographer and not having a picture taken with her or any pictures of her at all.

Another Random Fact: I never got to hear her on the piano. So T_T.

Sometime during lecture, I received an SMS from Raffles saying that there will be an assembly for Raffles Institution Boarding J2 girls later in the day and anyone could have guessed what that was. Yes, it was the official announcement for the dear departed and later, a sharing session.

I must say, Raffles offers very good support. From the boarding side, we had our assistant boarding mistress, Ms. Rachel Ng, who was there for us at every step of the way. Of course, not forgetting the tutors, Christina, Valerie, Sharleen and the remaining lot, who tried their best to be strong for us. Even the boarding mistress from the other block, Ms. Teresa Lee, was forever asking how I was doing. It kinda makes me think of Ms. Low... Anyway, on the college side, the staff had already pre-informed our civics tutors about the situation, just as school started, to ensure that we were looked after. It wasn't like we needed taking care of, but it's good to know that the college actually put in the effort to do something like that. On top of that, they had people coming in to talk to us, armed with boxes and boxes of tissues. Sure, it was weird talking to strangers about Ms. Low, but it felt good because people needed to know about Ms. Low and how much meaning she has brought into our lives. She was warm, merry and compassionate, and she made us wanna be a better person. Although there weren't any words good enough to describe how selfless and thoughtful Ms. Low was, it felt a tad better getting all our thoughts, through poorly structured sentences, out of our system.

Something to Note: Notice how all my tenses are so messed up? It's just like my brain right now.

At the end of the session, Ms. Tan, my tennis teacher, was there as well. She said I could take a day off training to have some time for myself. But I went anyway, in hope that all my troubling thoughts would go away. I just needed to whack the ball out of the ball. In fact, it felt good when I did. Besides, I didn't want to go back to boarding and "have some time for myself" because I felt like I should be suffering from physical training. Lord knows why... Bleh!

Anywhos, I can honestly move on right now if I want to. You know... stop grieving and stop missing and stop hurting? But I don't want to. I don't want to because I want to remember all the times that Ms. Low shared with us... All that laughter. Hell, I can still hear her voice in my head... "Oh dear... Is everything alright? :)" keeps playing over and over again. And that smile she gives you? N-E-V-E-R G-E-T-S O-L-D.

You know, it's amazing how so much can happen in 48 hours... As cliché as it is, it still amazes me. Sure, it's been pretty fuzzy, how it all happened... It feels so impossible and so surreal, coming back to boarding, knowing that Ms. Low wouldn't be there at roll call.

I dreamt a dream yesterday; 24 hours after it all happened, Ms. Low was still here with us, babbling with us, smiling at us. Everyone was happy. But as reality sets in, I start to feel how sore my eyes are due to the crying and the holding back of tears. As I look around, the atmosphere seemed all but dreary. It pains me to say this but I know that that, was just a dream; and this bitter mess, isn't.

So... Never again will she be able to see Muzhi's awesome art... Never again will she be able to watch Elys rock on the piano... Never again will she be able to hear Anas sing... Never again will she be able to share Vanessa's laughter... Nissa, Ollie, Yee Won, Jia Yan, Jaclyn, Su, Kim, myself; Never again will she be able to talk to us as if her own... Never again will we be able to talk to her as if our own.

It hurts. It really does.

But after all this, I'm not going to ask you to treasure your time with the ones surrounding you everyday because it's so overdone and you wouldn't do it anyway. But again, I really hope you do decide to do so on your own accord.

After all, who knows what will happen in the next 48 hours...

In loving memory of Ms. Low Wai-Lin.

Daughter. Wife. Boarding mistress. Teacher. Friend. Practically family.

May you be well and happy, where ever you are. :)

PS. I started working on this on Tuesday but I only completed it on Wednesday and published it on Thursday. Hopefully that explains the timeline...