Entry 18 May 2008 in MSN My Space.
On 4 May 2008, at about 4.30 pm in the afternoon, I received a call from one of my guys, Jith: "Tom. Jordan had an accident this morning. He passed away."
Few words of breaking news fail to leave one moved. This one was to rock my world inside out.
The idea of getting this entry done is not to lay full tribute. (I am working on some memoirs separately, maybe for catharsis.)
Jordan Tay was born to Charlie and Irene on 26 April 1983, and he left this world of toil and play on Sunday, 4 May 2008 in the early hours of the morning after a barbeque with friends. He was riding his dream motorbike - the Ducatti Monster - and in a TE Lawrence sort of way, died like Jimmy Dean, forever young and free.
This is my favourite picture of Jordan. It was taken the award-winning photographer, Allen Myles from Australia and I had everything to do with this getting shot.
http://www.allanmyles.com.au/
Jordan was helping me coordinate with the location sites and the advertising agency on the photography shoot for our new advertisement campaign scheduled for launch in November 2007. Early on a weekend (Sunday morning), he rode his Honda Wave from home down to help with the ground coordination. I don't remember him being particularly good about getting up early, so I knew how this sort of thing tormented him. I had the agency on the telephone, and spoke to Roy, the art director and told him, "Hey, Roy, take care of him, OK, and see that he's alright. Call me if anything. Oh, by the way, let's surprise him. When there's a break in between, can you please get Allen to shoot Jordan as he is, you know, relaxed and just real." Roy said, sure.
Jordan did get his photos but I never saw them until he had already left my charge end March 2008.
The truth is, I am having a really hard time dealing with his passing. In a nutshell, it was simply because he was just terrific as a person and I genuinely missed him. As his boss, it made sense for me to have a clean cut after the 11-months of mentoring, and 19 months of friendship at least, since mid-2006. He called me twice on Friday, 4 April in the afternoon. I saw the missed calls but thought to get back to him. I also overlooked his birthday when it came around on Saturday, 26 April but had plans to call him on Sunday, 4 May to arrange a meeting the following Tuesday, 6 May. I did not know even then that among his friends and ex-colleagues he had a barbeque planned on 1 May at SAFRA Country Club, Changi. I think it was great that he had a whole month free from work pressure and that gave him a chance to catch up with his friends.
Jordan's brief life as I witnessed it is not tragic as if his sudden departure might want to mythologize. He had an extraordinary life and I don't plan to be his hagiographer. And he had a temperament or moods, and if he had his own temper and idiosyncrasies, I can claim to have seen and experienced it all. For 11 months, he came to work in the morning and left in the evening, and sometimes put in late hours and on weekends. I saw him happy with his mates and colleagues, and I also saw how hard he worked to get recognition from me, which I may have seemed selfishly witholding.
Yet, to the end of this working relationship with me, at his final interview I threw him a few options and a lifeline. But he indicated he had made "other plans" and I was to respect that. With the end of this mentored relationship, I knew that I myself would need a time away completely, to formalise the end of that mentoring bond, and if I could after that, allow for the normalcy of friendship to resume and take precedence. Perhaps, even as a friend, and like an older brother who loved him, could provide some independent guidance, from a viewpoint that is one whom like him, understands what it means to struggle hard to get recognised. For I was without any formal higher education, and I knew that he looked up to me for that, setting my professional life as a model for himself.
So, I felt it was too early to speak with him when he called on 4 April. As a result, my last memory of him was that of his tall, lanky frame standing in-between the office dividers, clutching his helmet and bag beneath his arms in his trademark stance. His body was turned to go, but he looked to me as I worked at my desk corner. he said: "Tom, I am going. Bye." I heard all his team mates wish him farewell. Inside, my heart was breaking. I hated that he was leaving and tomorrow morning he would not be here, like for the past 11 months, reporting for work.
This is the freedom that separates, and is essential for either to grow. Like boats leaving the coast for the greater catch of the day. Many metaphors but none can convery the anxiety and anguish, the silent pain and ache that marks both ends and beginnings. At the corner of my eye, I saw him, and instinctively though I did not want to, my head nod slightly in acknowledgement. I had hoped he would take the lifeline offer and stayed on. But leaving was good for him, and for me, too.
In another time, I would add to this list of entries why I loved this young man, and how he turned my own life magnificiently topsy-turvey. But it sufficed to say that we shared more than a common surname. He and I had specific loves and passion and these were like sailing routes old ships might take over and over again. When we spoke together as friend, son, brother, colleague or mentoree, we would traverse these same familiar lines over and over again. He was an idealised version of myself young and free-spirited, and I was perhaps the older idea of himself within a corporatized world.
I had a great love for what he enjoyed and shared my own things with him about these - motorbiking, climbing, scuba diving, skating, music (Jack Johnson), and the whole gamut of discovery and knowledge, colour and style, and love of the outdoors. Jordan really wanted to help people. I put him as the guy to coordinate relief effort and our corporate community involvement projects and listed him to attend last year's Global Compact convention at the NVCC event in December 2007 at Suntec.
One of his best moments shared with me, was when he told me about how he got into a conversation with his dad, Charlie, about the tough executive work he was doing and how much it mattered to him. Then he said, "My dad told him he was proud of me, and that I could do anything as long as I was happy." I was really glad for him that this happened. Because one of the things that really mattered to him, was making his father and his family proud of him.
I was Jordan's boss. I loved him as a friend as even if he were like my own son, I loved his energy as his mentor and I often reminded him to stay the course; I loved him for his humility and humour as a colleague but most of all his perseverance and faithfulness. I loved him for his discretion and intelligence, even if this meant he was sometimes too headstrong or stubborn, but I loved the way he never gave up. I hope he has it in him to forgive me for letting up and letting off steam. I never targetted him per se, even if he sometimes felt like it. I explained myself objectively.
And where I have been at fault, I always went back to my boys - Jordan included - to admit my failing and indicate what I would do to make it better.
In the end, there was a great part of me which became Jordan.
But I was proud of him because of the part of him that has always been aware of his own blessed nature and gifts.
Today, even as I try to work out my grief and regrets, which follow very closely in the wake of my own deep loss of my best friend - my Mum in 8 February 2008 - and from the difficulty of wrangling myself from diving back into my work to numb the pain, I know that both my best friends have passed from this world into a greater peace, free from toil and mechanisms.
Just last Friday, as I walked into the neighbourhood Cheers store to pick up some drinks before heading home, I felt the sharp pain and my heart race as I thought of Jordan now gone. My immediate thought, as I queued to pay for my purchase, was to run to my Mum's flat nearby, upstairs as we say, and tell her, "Ma, I just lost my friend." But right then, I felt a sharper arrow of truth pierce the very interior of my soul. My Ma was not to be around for me to pour this out and share my grief with her. Gone would be the solace and private comfort I could get. I felt horridly alone, and in abject pain.
Now, it would be a long journey of self-discovery and healing, as if any land devasted by such calamity can so quickly recover. But I remember their love and the great peace I have always felt: like when I simply sat around my Mum and just her presence made me whole, or when Jordan lifted his left arm and placed his hand on my shoulder when comforting me about the loss of my mother. "Ah... That felt good, Jordan. Thanks." That was what I said to him at 10.15 pm that evening in March 2008, at the Somerset Road entrance to our workplace as we finished an evening of shopping, cigarettes and cool conversation.
Thanks, Jordan.
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