The Hidden Rules of Love, Loss, and What We Let In

When It’s Yours, It Feels Different

You know how you can share a steaming bowl of noodle soup with someone you love, your child, your spouse, your best friend, and feel totally fine? You dig in, laugh, maybe even sip from the same spoon. There’s no disgust, no hesitation. It’s warm. Familiar. Safe.

But now imagine you’re drinking from your own water bottle, the one you carry everywhere. And suddenly a tiny strand of noodle, chewed, soggy, drops into it. Maybe your four-year-old was sipping and left a bit behind. Maybe your instinct wasn’t to just pick the noodle out. Maybe you poured out the entire bottle.

Why?

It’s the same noodle, same person, same moment. But the water bottle is yours: Personal, clean, controlled. That noodle didn’t just enter the water. It entered a mental boundary.

The reaction is disproportionate not because of hygiene, but because of meaning. One container invites connection, the other demands control. One is made to be shared, the other is expected to remain untouched.

And the moment that expectation is broken, we’re not just reacting to the noodle. We’re reacting to the invisible lines we draw around what we claim as ours.

The Day That Wasn’t Supposed to Happen

20th of July, 2025. A Sunday packed with everything.

It started with a disappointment, or so I thought. Evan couldn’t join the family trip to Singapore because we misplaced his passport. That meant I stayed back while the rest went ahead. But that twist gave us something better: a whole day together we weren’t supposed to have. A hidden gift.

Lunch with Aden’s favourite at Sushi Mentai, afterwards we bought durian for my wife and got a cake at the confinement center. All 4 of our children finally present in one place. Rare, chaotic and yet beautiful. For a moment, I saw the kind of family rhythm I used to dream about but rarely got to live. I thanked God for it.

Then we transitioned from feasting to mourning.

A wake service in the extended community. I brought my kids, not for formality, but to help them face a truth most of us avoid: death is everyone’s destiny. I briefed them gently before we entered, prepared them for what they’d see. A body in a coffin, grieving loved ones, tears that don’t always come with answers.

This was their first funeral experience. It was also a mirror to my own fears of impermanence, the moments I’ve missed and the people I still take for granted.

Earlier that day, Evan had spat a few soggy noodles into my water bottle as he drank. I remember recoiling instinctively, tempted to pour it all away. But then the reflection landed. Why am I okay eating from his bowl, but not okay sharing my water once it’s “contaminated”? It wasn’t the noodle but it was the expectation and boundary.

And that moment became a metaphor for something bigger.

The Blind Spot Called Presence

We say we love someone. We say we value family and we preach connection, intimacy, grace.

But the ones we love the most are often the ones we lash out at the fastest. Why? Because we assume they will always be there. We believe the bond can bear our worst moments. We trust that love will absorb our sharpness, our silence, our withdrawal. So we fight, we shout, we walk away, not because we do not love them, but because we have forgotten how fragile their presence truly is.

Until they are gone.

And suddenly silence speaks louder than any argument ever did: The untouched toothbrush. The half-finished drink. The undone chores. Even the habits that once annoyed us, the way they interrupt, the way they leave the toilet seat up, the way they nag about lights left on, suddenly feel sacred and precious

Presence is a blind spot.

We do not notice it until it disappears. We assume there is more time, assume love will always make space, and assume we will always get another chance.

And then the noodle drops, the person walks out and the coffin closes. Then we begin to see everything clearly, only when it is too late.

Don’t Throw the Water Away

Here is the truth. We do not grieve just the person we lost. We grieve the version of ourselves that existed with them, the small moments we were too busy to treasure and the unspoken words. Love was never about perfection, but it was about presence. And presence was never guaranteed.

So the next time someone “drops a noodle” into your water, pauses your flow, disrupts your control, messes with your neat boundaries, pause. Before you pour it all away, ask yourself:

• Am I reacting to the person, or to something they touched inside me?
• Am I protecting my water, or rejecting their presence?
• Would I miss them tomorrow if they were gone?

And if the answer is yes, then maybe do not throw the water away just yet. Because the opposite of love is not hate, it is assumption; and the opposite of grief is not forgetting, it is gratitude.

While there is still time to feel it.

The Reverse That Redefines It All

You thought the problem was the noodle, but the real danger was forgetting the connection.

It was not contamination that hurt you, it was control that made you throw it all away.

So do not wait for a funeral to realize what mattered, or wait for silence to remember the beauty of sound. Shared soup will always feel messy. But it is where love lives.