When I got to JC, stories about how good she was on the field, how commanding (and fierce!) my JC teammates who were already on the youth team by '95 would recount to me..to my awe and amazement.
In 1999, Mel's last (and my first) SEA Games in Brunei, she was still as commanding and brilliant on the field at 38. Having never really trained or played with her before, I still see her as a senior who is way above in a class of her own. And still awed like the teenager of 1995.
Now 12 years later, Mel, turning 50, was going to have the birthday bash that she had starting planning for 3 years back. Luck has it that she was walking around her school compound, and one of her knee gave way just like that. Torn ligament, probably a "souvenir" for all the years of hard knocking her knees took. With sheer determination and lots of physiotherapy sessions, she appeared on the field as if she was her old, albeit slightly injured self (hockey players always carry some sort of old injuries - age just amplifies them). Anybody not privy wouldn't have realised that she just had a knee operation less than 2 months back.
After the match was her birthday bash at St Mary's Church. Surrounded by family, teammates and friends, I see Mel as a personification of living for her passion to the fullest - braving injuries to every possible part for the game she loved, enjoying every fun moment with her friends/teammates off the pitch, loving her family, friends, colleagues and every part of her life...
I was still awed last night. But no longer as a teenager of 95, but as a person who see someone whose life, when she look back, can definitely say it was Simply The Best, the theme song for the 93 SEA Games team and the one which accompanied the montage put together by her closest team mate as a tribute of her wit, determination, courage and desire to be the very best that she could.
Wishing Mel many more great moments from this milestone onwards!
(I am totally regretting not taking any photographs yesterday..darn!)
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