I was standing waiting for the camp's closing ceremony to start when I got a text message from a friend back in Canada, asking me if I had remained in touch with a common elementary friend, Pardeep. I have so I texted her back and asked her why.
Pardeep was a guy I meet back in the day, back in elementary school when I lived in a very white suburban city. He stood out at my school because of his ethnic background and was sometimes teased because of it. I remember once seeing a boy rip off Pardeep's turban and watching as Pardeep's long, long, jet black hair flew out into the open air. When I told my mother the story that day, she told me to be extra nice to him because he was like me, "beautifully different" as she put it. Whether it was kids calling me "Church Girl" or them teasing me about my small eyes which they insisted meant I was part Asian, I had tasted what it meant to be different. It never really was the extent to which Pardeep had endured, none the less, I agreed with my mother and tried to be extra nice to him.
Me being nice to him was one day "rewarded" with flowers. Yup, I was either 12 or 13 at the time when it happened. I was upstairs when my mom called me down, telling me that a boy had brought me flowers. I thought it was a joke at first but low and behold there at my front door stood Pardeep with a massive bouquet of mixed-coloured flowers. It was the first time any boy had ever bought flowers. Instantly my body went several shades of red with embarrassment as my two brothers raced up the stairs to come laugh at me. "If you don't like these I can buy you roses" was Pardeep's response to all the commotion.
Today I got word that the first boy to ever buy me flowers died. He fell from his 21st apartment. I don't know the details of the story but I was told by other friends in Canada that it's been all over the news so I looked it up on the Internet. Apparently he was wanted by the police. When they arrived at his apartment this past week, he tried to flee by jumping onto a neighbor's balcony but he slipped and fell. The police found him dead on the 9th floor balcony.
I was shocked when I read the news of the event -- my friend, a boy I went to elementary school with, someone who I grew up with. News of his shocking death flooded the pages of my friends on Facebook but it didn't make it feel anymore real. It still very much feels like a fictional story. Things like this just don't happen where I come from. This is so crazy.
As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).
After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.
Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.
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