I was in bed when I received the call. 

"Err.. I don't know how to break it to you, but Kak Rose is gone. She passed just now. I'm really sorry."

I was in denial for two days before I dealt with the fact that my other best friend is gone. Downright depressed, I barraged my friend on the other line with many questions I didn't even realize I was asking and promptly hung up the phone. I couldn't tell if our conversations ended with a proper goodbyes or not, I just sat at the end of the bed and my breaths started to became erratic.

She's gone.

I cried for hours, falling asleep with sad songs playing on the earphones. An incoming wave of sadness washed over me before receded into expected sigh of depression.

She passed away the day after her 31st birthday, after a week in ICU. The internal bleeding finally took a toll on her life, she left the world without much complications. 

Kak Rose was born in Kuala Lumpur before her family and she migrated to Colorado when she was nine-years old. She spent her teenage years in Colorado and Boston before moving to New York to work as a doctor.

The two of us had planned to go to Peru and Bolivia, a roadtrip across South America before I went back to Malaysia soon. We were planning to drive through a balm of summer landscapes, small towns along the road of the border between Peru and Bolivia. But, in the future, it will be just me trying to spark our initial plan by myself.

No more late night phone calls, no more cheesy inside jokes between us, no more heart-to-heart sessions that she always fond of, no more silly excuses for me to go to New York because of her.

Thank you for teaching me the reality of the world, for being a super-awesome big sister I never had, for listening to my rambles and problems and every single thing that I had to say even though it was super-late in New York, for everything that you've done for me.

You taught me to be the person that I am today.

Rest well, R. I'll see you again.

I love you.