I never wanted to post about Reuben. I thought I didn't need to, that I could just remember him the way he was. Some of you might know, some of you might know, but I knew Reuben Kee, one of the unfortunate victims in the dragon boat incident in Cambodia last November. I did not know about the incident until a few days or a week later when I chanced upon the article on the MSN website. Even then, I wasn't sure if it was the same Reuben I knew (I couldn't have known, there could've been more Reuben Kee's).

It was only after I saw my primary school friend Jon's blog did I realise that the Reuben who perished in foreign waters was the same Reuben I knew from Nanyang Polytechnic while I was there. The one thing that struck me on Jon's blog was the fact that he mentioned how Reuben was an exceptional pianist, and was very gifted at arranging music, especially game soundtracks. I remember discussing arrangement possibilities for one of his works a few times on occasion.

I remember the last thing I spoke to him about was to stay in contact as I had quit NYP, and for him to send me some of his arrangements, which he promised he'd do so. Truth is, we never stayed in contact as my computer had crashed and I never bothered to install ICQ again. I never got to hear his arrangements after I left. I felt guilty and thought about him once in a while, a talented individual who was one of my first friends after secondary school due to our like interests.

Fast-forward until today. I was looking for some music to play at work when a friend Daron mentioned on MSN that he was listening to an "ocremix", subsequently posting the link for me, saying it had loads of videogame remixes and the like. I was pleased with the website, and listened to song after song after game song. However, tonight as I was surfing around for Chrono Trigger music, I saw Reuben's name as the author of one of the tunes, which also happened to be one of my favorite Chrono Trigger songs. I was shocked. Again, I didn't think it was the same one, until I clicked his website link and there it was, plain as day, was:

Safe in the arms of Jesus: Reuben "Reu" Kee
(9 July 1984 - 23 Nov 2007)
When I listened to the song I found, I cried.

He had sent me his music after all.