To unit 26:


Hey there! Its me Damien, your neighbour from unit 24. And I guess you could say the rest of the family too. On their behalf? Hahahaha.

I hear from Pamela that you guys are going to Australia soon. That's great! Big change is always exciting. And whoa Australia... beautiful place, and I'm guessing a less gloomy populace xD

~The "could've/should've/would've" effect.~
Okay actually what i'm getting at is that i'm a little guilty that we haven't been really good neighbours with each other over the years. And losing something has a way of making one realise we hadn't treasured it enough. We could have smiled at each other more. We should have invited each other over when we had the chance. We would have made even more awesome neighbours!

Whoawaohh. I'm not saying we weren't good neighbours. We were! But life would be so much more awesome if we put in a little extra effort. Maybe it wasn't our fault. We lost it somewhere among the piles of work that needed doing, the tears of growing up... And the house. It's so BIG. So many mouths that need feeding. So many bulbs that need changing. So many floors that need cleaning, walls that need a fresh coat of paint (admittedly we haven't gotten around doing the painting.) but you get the picture. Its so stressful :/

(okay to be fair, i should probably also address that many times i feel like i belong to a family who are morons with the spoken word; myself included. In other words, we're an awkward bunch. We want to be nice, but you know, its awkward, and my dad admits it too. I could almost picture myself reading this letter aloud at your porch. Yes, drink it in, all of the searing awkward pain. Thankfully i'm much better with the written word, albeit not significantly so. [In fact, most Singaporeans are - which is why we need those reserved seat signs on our trains and buses - because people simply don't want to interact.])

Its easy to forget the good days, before the sad slate tiles started popping up, before we had anything much to worry about, well at least for us nosepickin' young'uns. Hahaha all of us would come out just before dinner and play. So fun xD. I miss playing catching, AEIOU, hide and seek, red alert, burning lanterns and m&ms, playing christmas games with you guys. Awesome. I wish I had pictures to remember, but the memories work just fine too.

Sadly Lion has grown old. Achoy passed away, Socks and his(her?) family has moved away. And now you guys are going :/ Its a lot to miss if you ask me. Is this a soppy letter? Yes. Is it necessary to write it? Yes. Because you guys were part of a large chunk of our childhood, and that deserves some kind of remembrance. And remembrance means there has to be some degree of soppiness to this letter.

So for the mango tree that is now gone, our baby teeth that once was, sundae the noisy little prick that is no more, the over the wall conversations we have, the nights we spent wondering when the party next door is going to end because we want to get some sleep,

THANKS FOR BEING OUR NEIGHBOURS. WE LOVE YOU.

Yours sincerely, 24

From Melody, Damien, Erica, Joseph and Charmaine.
To Benjamin, Pamela, Joseph, Steven and Juliana.

Of course, my family has its reservations about this letter, so i'm writing it in secret, (refer to bracketed paragraph about awkwardness) but rest assured, they really do feel the same way, just way too awkward to tell. They're also a bit envious, about how you guys have the courage and the momentum to step away from the familiar.