Farewell to Dad - Day1 & Day2 of Wake

Dear All

My dad passed away on 16 Apr 13 (Tue). Day 1 of the wake was when we met up with the funeral minister. One of the things he said, was if we wanted to have an Eulogy.

When we siblings talked about our dad, it occurred to me that I was very blessed to know our father as a man with many facets, which I believe some of my siblings were not so fortunate enough to know. Perhaps it was because I was the youngest, and therefore, the one that was usually left in the care of my parents while the older ones were full time in school or working. Perhaps it was due to the face my parents took care of my kids when they were young and we were welcomed to live under their roof during that time. I believe, it was both, and lots more.

I suppose it was because he and mum were there for me and my family most of the time, and at important milestones of our lives and our children's lives. I suppose it was also because we were there for mum and dad regularly, in fact, weekly, and during their times of need. It is the little things in life, as well as the big things that happen in life that cements this bond, strengthens it, and nurture this love and communication between parent and child.

When my sibling asked, "Do we really know our dad?" I was bursting with sweet memories of dad. It's just that I don't trust myself to be strong enough to say out my recollections without breaking down and coming across incoherent.

Dad was a man of very few words. So when he speaks, I pay full attention. He is always frugal as he's the sole breadwinner, feeding 6 mouths, including his own. He always expounds me to be frugal, asking me to save 10c of the 20c or 30c daily pocket money he gave me for primary school.

I remember the mandate Saturday bus rides he took with me, carrying my music bag, to attend piano lessons at my cousin's home. We had to change bus to get to his place, the journey lasting 1.5h one way. He'll wait for me during the piano lessons for 1.5 or so hours in the afternoon, afterwhich he will walk with me to the church nearby to attend sunset mass, just the 2 of us. We then return by the same route, this time during the night. He'll most of the time doze off during my piano lessons on the sofa. If this is not called love and sacrifice, what is then?

His favourite piano songs that he'll always ask me to play are La Paloma and Beautiful Blue Danude. He loves ballroom dancing and taught me the waltz dance step, which I never could figure out the routine. I always got lost after the 1st swing!

I remember my mum walking me every morning to the kindergarten near our home, and dad fetching me home by car after kindergarten, in his brown Toyota Corolla.

When he bought the Toyota Corolla, he asked us kids to choose the colour. Everyone had their own favourite colour. In the end, it was mum who made the final decision - Brown, period. It was to be his last car as he had to retire by then, so the car was sold off after my elder brother's NS (it was kept to fetch him to camp as late as possible after the weekend checkout) to boost up his savings for our education.

To save more, he and mum gave up their tai-chi lessons. When we were even smaller, mum gave up the washing lady and kept only the ironing lady. She had to wash clothes on the wooden washboard by hand, and there were 6 of us - 4 kids, herself and dad. Very penny was saved from every possible quarters as dad was not working anymore and 3 of us were still schooling.

He did some sideline - draftsman work. Drawing for the architects. He was an entrepreneur and survivor.

In his younger days, he was a land baliff. That occupational title always gave me a headache in school. Everyone - teacher and classmates - asked, what IS a land baliff? I asked dad. He said he surveys the land and does measurements. He sees if the land can be an agricultural land. This job sounded uninteresting to me, but then, he elaborates further, this job takes him to places like Sarawak and parts of Malaysia. It gets even more interesting. He has met the dayaks and befriended the sea dayaks, those who cut human scalps and hang their victim's hair on their spears or blow darts. He had collected dayak shields, parangs and knives, both the ceremonial ones as well as those actually used to kill humans. Mum was screamish and allowed him to keep only some of the ceremonial ones in the house.

He was paid quite a handsome sum of around $700 - considered a lot of money in those days by the company, and provided with a servant to cook his meals and another to carry his things, when he has to go into unchartered jungles. He said the villagers there were very nice to him. Some asked him for help and paid in kind as they don't have money. So he was given a chicken one day, and eggs at another time. So my dad had an adventurous streak.

My dad helped my mum take care of my 2 kids since they were born. My elder one till she was about Primary 2, and the younger just before she started nursery.

I remembered he joked that the contract is only for 2 years!

When it was bathe time for the grandkids, he'll always be the one holding the cloth napkin to wrap the kids after mum bathed them in the pink baby bath tub. He would dance whilst holding the napkin outside the doorway to entertain the grandkids. He did that till his legs started to become thinner and wobbly, and my mum chided him to be careful and not play the fool. He always made sure the bathroom doors were shut close fully when the grand kids had their bath, and that the fan in the bedroom is totally off before he carried them, bundled tightly in the napkins into the baby cot. He was the one who double checked the bath water's temperature to be right enough before he poured the baby bath into it and mixed it up.

He and mum would spoil the elder grand kid by pushing her in the stroller whenever they go out. They pushed her to kindergarten till she was so embarrassed, she asked my mum to hind the stroller some distance away from the kindergarten, so that she's seen to be walking to school instead of being wheeled in the stroller.

It was dad who gave my elder girl all her English spelling tests. If she doesn't study her 10 words, he never scolds her but just let me know. He and mum brought the 2 grand kids, especially the elder one when they were younger and more mobile to the latest shopping malls by MRT.

When I was small, perhaps in primary school, dad always opened the umbrella for us when it rained. He'll say "Don't come out yet. I'll get the umbrella" and he'll shelter each one of us from the car door to the sheltered building.

When he doesn't have an umbrella and it drizzles, he doesn't allow any drop of rainwater to fall on my head. He'll always have this gentleman's cloth hankerchief which was gigantic and thin, and hold it on top of my head. When I complain the wind is blowing it away, he'll quickly tie noughts at all 4 corners to make it into a simple cloth cap and try to fit it snugly onto my head.

One of our favourite weekend family outings was to Changi beach. Dad would like the floors of the car with newspapers and the seats with this green coloured canvas. He'll also bring along this huge gallon bottle filled with tap water to our over our sandy feet after our swim. He'll make us stick our feet out over the side of the car doorway and he'll pour the water over our feet, use his hands to wipe off the sand he missed and quickly wipe them dry on the towel before we placed our feet in the car. Our feet felt wonderfully clean with no sticky saltwater feeling nor seaweed smell, except for our body in our swimming costume!

When they went marketing in Joo Chiat, dad would line that side of the car window that was facing the sun with newspapers to shield us and give us shade. Mum would pack us our favourite black char kueh and fried yu char kueh first. They'll bring our home metal spoons for us to eat our meal, so that we'll be quiet for a while as mum quickly did her marketing whilst dad kept on eagle eye on us.

When dad still had the car, he'll fetch my brother for piano lessons at another teacher's house after Mass and mum packed my brother and mine favourite vegetable currypuff from the polar cafe opposite Holy Family church. After dropping my brother off for piano lessons, he'll bring me and mum to a nearby playground. I remembered being vain then, wanting to wear those high children's lacy stockings. I had a white and a red pair. I remembered wearing the red one the day I ran and fell on my knees. Mum was buying some snacks from the mobile kiosks for me when I was happily skipping and fell and scraped my knee. It smarted and there was a tear in my stock where the cut on my knee was. Dad took out his handy hankerchief and gingerly tried to wipe as much sand as possible from my wound. He and mum even tried blowing on it to get ride of the tiny grains of sand. I cried, both because of the pain, as well as the tear in my favourite stocking!

In our old house, the bus depot was right outside our porch. Whenever the buses warm up their engines and let them run, dad warns me not to go out. He closed all the windows and door and on the ceiling fan on full blast. I actually quite liked the smell of the unburned fumes, but out of habit, and to please dad (as I thought) I would chant to him "bus chow chow", since he said not to go out and not to smell the chow chow fumes. Little did I know till many years later, when my mum told me, after we had moved house for some years, that my innocent child chant hurt dad right to his heart's core. How could he, as a father, allow his child to inhale poisonous humes and hearing me crying out to him how terrible the fumes smelt! He was a loving and caring dad and grandfather.

My elder girl shared that Kong Kong loves chocolate. I vaguely remember he did. She also finds him to be a very determined person. When he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, he was very determined to stick to the very strict diet that mum gave him. One of the things he had to give up was his chocolate! And he did for the yet of his health and the love of my mum and us -- to live for us! And he did, to a ripe old age of 96!

Dad was a builder. He built the orchid greenhouse 3 tier stand with mum and for mum. The last thing he build was the garden shed at the back of the garden with mum. It still stands upright and strong till today.

I remember him weeding the carpet grass always every evening with his dayak dagger whenever I return home from school. Sometimes, he'll ask me to help me. I only do so when he asks, as I hate weeding...it's back breaking and very time consuming. A few days later, the weeds spout up again. Soon, the carpet grass was choked out by the weeds and become crab grass. I remember him sweeping the fallen leaves from the garden as well as the cement floor outside the house. He was a gardener.

When mum wanted to change the location of her kitchen, I remember dad taking out the tracing paper and using his wooden and metal rulers to draw and measure out a sketch of the new structure. He would start with pencil lines first, followed by fine-tipped black felt pen. Once he's on a project, he had the habit of not stopping until it's done.

At one stage, dad was often seen gardening in the mid day hot sun, sweating profusely, bare-bodied, in his kaki shorts and large brimmed ratten farmer's hat. Mum would chide him, but he'll just brush her off, joking never mind lah, he's ok till one day, when mum came to give him his cold glass of water, his eyes rolled upwards and he fainted. Mum yelled for help. She somehow managed to lay him on the ratten deck chair in the shade. She asked me to get tiger balm and paper to fan him. As we kids crowded around him, fearing the worse, she asked us to stand away to give him air. She was crying and asking him not to leave her. We all fanned him as fast as we can. Fortunately he recovered, and we never saw him gardening in the mid-day hot sun ever again!

Dad is a handy man. One weekend, he tried to repair the TV. I liked to check on dad now and then when I was young. It so happened I came to check on him and I saw him fall backwards on his backside, and he was stiff. I was shocked and asked him if he was alright and was about to touch him when he called out "Don't touch me! Call mum now!". I ran off to the back where the kitchen was and called mum. She came in, saw everything and understood what was happening all in one glance. She turned off the TV power socket, told me to stand clear and took a wooden stick to flick the wire that dad was still holding in his hand as he told her he just got an electric shock and not to touch him. My mum is a very clever and resourceful lady, full of wisdom. She was the one who told dad to cement most of the garden, as they were getting old and can't do gardening in future. It'll be costly to engage someone to cut the trees, so down the durian, mango and starfruit trees went. Dad used to chop off the branches with my brothers when he was stronger. He was a complementary co-decision maker.

Dad led us in our nightly family rosary prayers. He did so diligently even though his faith was not as strong as my mum's. It was during one of his holy land trips that he saw the Mother Mary in the Sun through holding my mum's hand in prayer. As mum described what she saw, dad was at his usual table at the side porch. But instead of reading his papers, he was listening to her relate to me what they both saw. Dad didn't say anything. When I asked him if what mum said was true and if he saw our Lady in the Sun, he just nodded and smiled. When I asked him how she looked like, he took out the medal hanging on the chain round his neck and showed me -- this was exactly how she looked like. With 12 stars forming a crown around her head. I believe and grew in my Catholic faith because of his simple straight forward witness. If dad said so, he wouldn't lie. So, it has to be the truth. Mum sees alot of things, but dad never shared any, only this, and this only when I asked him. He doesn't volunteer such witnessing to anyone unless he's asked. Dad is my faith builder. He set a good example to me what a good Catholic home and family should be like.

In his old age, when his physical body started to fail him but his mind is still sharp, whenever we do little things for him, like marketing, or bringing mum to see the doctor, which he used to accompany her and she, vice versi for him, he'll thank us. He'll say "thank you". I'll tell him no need to thank us. I am thankful to him and mum for helping us in bringing up our kids since they were born. Without their help, I don't know how we'll ever manage. I am so glad I had the opportunity to tell him that I love him when he was frail but still conscious and gave him a kiss. He just smiled contentedly.

I love you daddy. I will miss you. But in your end time, you were mostly a shadow of yourself. It'll be very selfish of us to hold you on. We can finally say good bye daddy, you can go now, and you went, at peace. You gave us your unconditional and sacrificial love, even to the very end. But the one who will miss you most sorely is mum for you are her world and her saviour.