Remembering My Father

My father passed away on Friday, 29 July 1983 while I was doing my military In-Camp training. He was one of the top students in Raffles Institution Secondary School with seven distinctions for his Cambridge Examination. He left me an inheritance of eight Singapore dollars and his legacy. The number eight means prosperity for many Chinese. He had inherited a share of land in Choa Chu Kang from his late parents. The land was quite big as it was measured in hectares. His share of land was given to my mother when he passed away. In a way, he had PROSPERED through inheritance and having a dozen children. The land was later acquired by our government under the Land Acquisition Act and was given some compensation to the shareholders of the land.

I saw him mainly during Chinese New Year when I was young. He worked for his relatives in Klang, Kuala Lumpur while I was in Singapore with my mother and siblings. He would come back for a few days and off he went again. Nevertheless, he would faithfully remit money through Hokkien Huay Kuan (a Hokkien Clan Association) to Singapore to support the family. It’s only when he retired that we had more time together. He brought me to National Library with my brother, taught me how to use a typewriter and gave me English tuition. But it felt strange initially, as there wasn’t much close bonding as with my mother. His eye sight was getting worse after he retired. Even with his poor eyesight, he would faithfully take a cab to Novena church alone.

Now that his gone, memories of him still linger on. By the way, he named his all children after the royal family in England. Even, my mother was named after a queen of England by him. Our whole family is a ‘royal family’ and we used to live in a neighborhood with roads named after the royal family of England. You named it and chances are that you will get it right that it will be the name of one of my family members.