Tim

Dear Tim Cribb has left us today. I think I still haven't registered the news. We met more than a decade ago, on Lamma Island. A tall, chain-smoking gentleman with a dry sense of humour - I loved it, sharp-minded and always full of ideas. He had been reading my online diary and wanted me to write a book - he had been championing Asian literature for years, as well as being a reporter. Many projects followed but unfortunately never saw the light. The last idea was to make a documentary about me. It was originally meant to be an interview, then he talked turning it into a documentary. We were still discussing the how's and when's earlier this year... 

Tim had been sick these past year. The last time I saw him was in Hanoi, when I came back from the set of The Third Wife. He was lying on a hospital bed, extremely weakened after a series of surgeries. But weak as he was, he hadn't lost his wit. 

How relieved and happy was I when I learned that he was recovering. 

In this case one hopes but one doesn't look. 

And now I shall have this regret not to have met him at least one more time to give him this photo of my bare back and bum that he had been requested for so long!

Goodbye, dear chap. Now it's beginning to dawn on me that you're free at last from all these burdensome health issues and that you're smoking a fine cigarette, with a nice glass of wine, and laughing at how foolish we all are. 

Love you Tim.