Grief

Witness to grief.

Let it be noted that I have found the following extremely difficult to write.
I missed the ferry today by about a minute as the time on my phone was 5 minutes slow. It's not like I had to be anywhere, I had no idea where I was going-just off the island. I was on call, but as it now seems these days that was not likely. I put my shades on and thought I'll go walkabout. Pissed off that I'd have to take a longer journey but happy that I'd have time for a fag I waited for the bus and sparked up. I saw the Filipina girl walk by as she answered her phone and went to join the queue, and thought to myself, 'she looks familiar, I wonder if she knows my wife?' Within a minute I hear a commotion in the queue, it takes me a minute to determine what it is. It is the same girl screaming at her phone, my first thought is that she is shouting at her partner or possibly her employer-just another domestic problem ' Jesus, do you have to wash your laundry in public? The Chinese hate this kind of thing' You do hear a lot of crap that could take place behind closed doors here, generally not from the locals, but from the rest of us who are guests here. I was wrong, and the tone of this poor girl's voice soon made it obvious. She left the queue and I then started to understand the pure horror this girl was in. During the next minute I picked up that someone very close to her had just died in a terrible accident. I have no idea who or how, and I still have no idea who the girl was. As I listened to her desperate pleas on the phone I absolutely froze. Her pleas will remain with me for the rest of my life. I wanted to do something, I wanted to help her or at least comfort her, but for a whole host of reasons could not. The relationship between British male and Filipina females is fraught with many problems, it's just not that easy. For 3 minutes I was literally glued to the spot, as her pleading and grief grew and grew. This was a public place and I did know that as soon as she put down that phone I would have to do something and make sure that she got home or whatever. It was then that she ran towards 2 other Filipinas waiting for a taxi, and of course they immediately took her in a cab. There is a certain sisterhood and companionship that exists between Filipinas here, not always but certainly at times like this. I do hope she is okay, and that her God and her family, and even her employer will help her through this. I once received that call, and I'm not sure if you ever get over it.