My 1st Love Letter

This morning while I was driving to work, I listened to ERA.fm. As usual, they would bring up a topic for listeners to send in stories relating to the topic of discussion and today’s topic was LOVE LETTER. I smiled listening to all the unique storied sent in. I’d really want to share my love letter story with the listeners but due to some mishaps I couldn’t do so.

Today I’d like to share my very 1st love letter with those who visit my blog. It happened more than a decade ago, 12 years to be precise. I was only 14 and still studying in form two when I got the letter. I could clearly recall the day I got the letter from this guy who used to sit beside me when we were in form one. It was Ramadhan, the fasting month was about to end. With the festive season just around the corner, all schools were scheduled for Aidilfitri break in a few days time. The Persatuan Agama Islam in my school decided to organize a Majlis Berbuka Puasa on our last day fasting in school before all students went off for the one-week school break. The ceremony started about half an hour before Maghrib prayer. After breaking fast during Maghrib, we enjoyed the meal prepared followed by performing the Maghrib prayer, after that followed by the Isyak prayer and lastly the Terawih & Witir prayers as all Muslims practiced in Ramadhan.

Once the ceremony was over, I packed my stuffs before my mom fetched me at school. While I was rushing down the stairs, this guy came to me, handed me an envelope and wished me Selamat Hari Raya. I presumed it was just a Raya greetings card coz I remembered he had done so the year before. But frankly, my heart pounded harder than normal when he approached to give me the envelope.

As soon as I got home, I quickly ran to my room & carefully unsealed the envelope. My assumption about the card being ordinary greeting card was wrong. It was a Raya greeting alright, but it was attached with a straight forward love letter. I read the letter line by line; he described his feelings towards me. I’d always knew that people like to teas us, they kept saying that we had feelings for each other ever since we sat next to each other in class when we were in form one, but I’d never thought that the teasing was for real especially the part where he had feelings for me.

After reading the letter, I didn’t know what to do with it. At first, I thought of replying the letter but I wasn’t sure how to write or what to write. The memory of me celebrating the festive season was very vague. A week had past, the school break was over, and I was still not sure what to do with the letter. I went to school as usual on the following day, but this time the feelings of guilt was haunting me. How could one react towards a classmate who handed you your very first love letter? I kept the letter for at least one week (I don’t really know for sure how long I kept it). I was clueless, I didn’t know how to react every time I saw him in class. His place was only one desk across me. I never talked to him since then, at last I decided to return the letter to the sender. This is another part that puzzled me, I wasn’t sure when or how or what should I say if I were to return it. The best way that I could think of was to put the envelope into the drawer of his desk. I was never sure when did he realize about its presence in his drawer & I didn’t intend to know.

A few months later, I heard that his family was shifting to Penang, his hometown. I never asked a thing about his move to Penang. Our class monitor had decided to throw a farewell party for him to acknowledge his contributions for helping us to beautify our class and won the weekly cleanliness award. I could clearly recall how I refused to attend the party just to avoid him and to show that no matter what happened I would stick to my decision of turning him down. With a number of people persuading me to go to the farewell party, I finally gave in. I even gave my photo to be enclosed in the photo album present that our class bought for him.

I vividly remember how my classmates tried so hard to snap a picture of us together and how they organized games for us to be playing together. Did I mention that I hate this guy? I hated him so much that I used to tell my little sister how I hated every single thing that he did. I even made fun of the way he walked. When I come to think of it, I never really had a valid reason for the strong hatred towards him.

Some of you may wonder, what happened to this guy that I hated so much? Guess what? The guy is the person that I’m living with; the guy that I hated is the same old guy that I married five years ago. I’ve never thought that we would end up marrying each other. It had never occurred to me that I’d be spending the rest of my life with the guy that I hated the most. That’s fate & life. Quoting from friend’s blog, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans”.

p/s: The love letter is still intact, he’s been keeping it with him all this while. We are keeping it safe for our children to read.