the day emma

I woke this morning to the straits times alert that Emma Yong passed away after a prolonged battle with stomach cancer. All that was in my head was 'no,no,no..'
...
I was in RJ year 1, and was supposed to arrange for a number of classmates who'd wanted to catch the Dim Sum Dollies. Mr Reeves very kindly booked and paid for us, and put me in charge of collecting the money for him. But I messed up and thought the show was on Friday not Wednesday, so on Thursday a very offended Mr Purvis and maligned Mr Reeves thought we stood him up and didn't show up the day before! But I passed him the money and apologized for messing up the dates. Mr Reeves felt bad and told me he'd call up Emma, who was his ex humanities student to see if she could do anything about it.

She gave us five VIP seats. They were probably double the price of the crappy student tickets we had paid for! And that sickening knot in my gut that I had to compensate all my classmates for being so stupid dissolved into gratefulness. Mr Reeves then gave me emma's number and told me to give her a call to thank her. "But don't call her too early in the morning! You know these artistic types.." ;) I texted her, nervous and very starstruck. She replied and was so sweet about the whole thing. We bought her flowers and after all these years, am still eternally grateful. xx RIP Emma.