Today I was shaken by the news of the passing of George Abraham. I hadn’t checked the Commando 1st Company chat group for a few days, so it was a shock to see your face suddenly appear on a funeral notice at 3am. It didn’t feel real.
I’m sorry I can’t make alternate arrangements to see you one last time, brother. Filming is locked in, and I wish it wasn’t.
The first thing that came to mind was the couple of times we did guard duty together. Somehow we always kena that most unpopular prowler shift. But it was during those long, quiet walks that I really got to know you. We clicked. We talked about art, artists, films. all this long before I knew I’d end up in film school. Only after ORD did I find out you were a painter yourself. No wonder our conversations felt different.
And the music. Sailing by Christopher Cross. Leader of the Band by Dan Fogelberg. We had so many theories about what those songs meant. In a company full of loud, competitive young men trying to prove themselves, you were one of the few I truly connected with. Your reflective demeanour, your deadpan dark humour - strangely comforting companions on those graveyard shifts.
It’s easy to bond when both of you knew you’re not the “perfect soldier.” You joked about how bad you were at Taekwondo, especially your flexibility. I laughed and admitted my reaction time was hopeless. Maybe that was it - two young artists trying their best in a place that demanded something else entirely. Two outsiders figuring out where we fit.
Maybe it was the salty Changi breeze blowing through Hendon that made us honest. Maybe it was just you.
We were definitely not supposed to sneak walkmans into prowler duty, but we did. And every time Leader of the Band played, these lines always stopped us in our tracks:
A quiet man of music denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn’t wait…
We knew that feeling. Trying to be something the world expected of us, while the art inside refused to stay quiet.
After ORD, our paths drifted. And like many of us, reconnecting became harder as the years went by. Especially when the world I ended up in was 180 degrees away from everyone else’s. But those conversations, that humour, that artist's soul of yours - they stayed.
And now, thinking about you, I realise something:
I wasn’t the only one walking those dark hours with an artist’s heart.
One for the PJI in the sky.
Rest easy, Aba.
May you find your peace.
Your song lives on in people like me - the ones who were lucky enough to walk those quiet nights with you.
