Over the weekend, something terrible happened to me. I dropped my bunch of keys.
The fact that I lost some keys is not that bad. I could get them replaced.
The fact that I got stranded in the middle of the night is not that bad. I could go to my friend’s place to bunk for the night.
What was terrible is the keychain which I have lost. That keychain was my very first purchase when I moved to Singapore back in 1999. I was at Orchard Road, I needed a keychain for my hostel keys, so I bought a nice one, all bronze and leather with my initial R.
Why was it significant? At S$10, it was almost RM25, which was a luxury to me as a student back then. The purchase was a splurge. But I loved the keychain. I have lost it several times over the years, but every time it got returned to me.
But not this time. I wasn’t so lucky. And the worst thing was that I don’t even have a photo of it to put up a “lost and found” notice. The closest I could find was this photo on Flickr.
It was like the lost of a long time friend. The keychain has been with me for more than ten years. Now it is gone.
Perhaps it was a sign… for me to get a similar symbolic item for my (somewhat) new life in Hong Kong.
Maybe I shall get a Tiffany. But I’ll do that only when I have grieved enough about its lost.
Good bye, my keychain. You are sorely missed.