Curse of the Sentosa Flowers

Friday (23 Feb) - The Sentosa Flowers Saga Part I
At the rate we are visiting the sunny island in the south, I told TT we should try to get a unit at Sentosa Cove.

My SIL offered to take my mum and the kids to see the Sentosa Flowers Exhibition around 4pm today. The adults were excited about seeing flowers, the kids just perk up when they hear the word "Sentosa"!

Presumption #1: My SIL presumed that the Flowers exhibition would be held at the garden and fountain area near the former ferry terminal as in previous years. But... this year it shifted to Imbiah. With plans of the IR (Integrated Resort) on the way, the ferry terminal area is now like a ghost town.

Presumption #2: We presumed my SIL knew where to go and what to do when she offered to take them to Sentosa. She sounded so confident over the phone, so we didn't ask. We didn't know that SIL was under Presumption #1.

It was a case of the blind leading the blind. My SIL drove into Sentosa with my MIL, my Mum, the maid and 2 kids. My SIL didn't even know that the Sentosa Express was up and running! And all the while my two kids were saying "Wanna take Express, wanna take Express..." My SIL parked near the ferry terminal and the entourage trudged all the way up to Imbiah.

In the evening TT picked me up from work and we were wondering where to settle our dinner. We thought why not meet my SIL and gang at VivoCity, so we called them and that's when Presumptions #1 and #2 became apparent. With the old folks tired and kids hungry (it was about 7pm), we decided to drive into Sentosa to pick them up. Darn, I had passed our Islander card to my Mum earlier so that Cheryl could enter free. So now we had to pay $6 to enter Sentosa.

Trying to find the entourage in Sentosa was a saga in itself. It was looking a lot like an episode in The Amazing Race or something. TT told them to wait at the musical fountain. But when we got there, they were nowhere to be seen. They had moved somewhere else. I called my mum on her handphone.

Presumption #3: I presumed my mum's definition of "near" was within 10m. She said, "We are near the Waterfront Station, you know the station that is still not yet opened." Got it. I know where that was. So TT drove illegally into this deserted pavement that got us at Waterfront Station. Where were they?? I walked around the Station which was currently being cordoned off. I called my mum again. She said, "We are at the clock tower lah! Very near the station what!" That was like 50 to 100m away! Anyway, we were finally reunited, and we headed to VivoCity for dinner. After dinner, we brought the kids for a round trip on the Sentosa Express (yes again) before heading back home.

Sunday - The Sentosa Flowers Saga Part 2

We took Cheryl for a badly-needed haircut this morning while Isaac played at the nearby playground at the market.

Before lunch I managed to convert one of our off-white IKEA rugs into a hop-scotch rug. We had bought three of these rugs when we first shifted into our current home, but eventually we rolled them up because the kids kept spilling food and staining the rugs. Now we only unroll one rug as and when needed (esp. on chilly days). So the other two were left to collect dust. At least now we've found some use for it. The expensive permanent coloured markers I bought for Cheryl's art class also came to good use for me to draw the numerals on the hop-scotch rug. Will take a pic of the rug if I can remember.

We had TT's colleagues over for lunch today. Mum had cooked my favourite Buah Keluak and Kiam Chye Ark soup. Because we were having guests, we decided to let Cheryl "ponteng" (skip) her art class in the afternoon.

When Isaac woke up from his nap, I suggested going to Sentosa because it was the last day of the Flowers exhibition. My mum wanted to tag along too because there wasn't enough time to see everything when she went with my SIL on Friday.

Our original plan was to park at VivoCity and take the Express to Sentosa. But the queue at the counter was so bloody long we decided to drive in instead. The Flowers exhibition certainly did not disappoint. The flowers were beautiful and extremely colourful. A photographer's paradise indeed. The theme was "Rhymes in Bloom", and so they installed large displays of characters from nursery rhymes such as a shoehouse, animals, etc. As expected, the kids did not really appreciate the flowers. They were quite bored and kept hounding us to take the Sentosa Express again.

We took many, many pictures of flowers, setting our camera mostly to macro. Didn't bother to take many shots with the kids because they were so uncooperative. We let Cheryl use our old digital camera to take some photos. I took a shot of her using the camera here. The whole place was fairly crowded, enough to irritate me. Everyone was snapping away, posing here and there, blocking the way (ourselves included!). Luckily the weather was relatively cool, and it even rained for a short while. Here are some shots I took. Click the thumbnails to get a better look.

To end off the outing, we had to board the Sentosa Express at Imbiah Station just to satisfy the kids. Previously when we took the Express, the staff did not allow us to do a round trip at VivoCity without exiting.

Presumption #4: I presumed that this policy had not changed since the last time we took the Express... and that was just 4 weeks ago?

But my mum insisted that we could, because they just did it on Friday. Frankly I didn't believe they could change their policy so quickly, so I thought they only allowed this on weekdays. My mum was adamant that she was right, and so was I. I decided not to push it further since we had the Islander card anyway. In the worst case, we could just get tickets again at VivoCity. I just feared that we needed to queue.

Lo and behold, the policy had indeed changed! Now passengers were allowed to take "joy rides" up to VivoCity and return to Sentosa without needing to exit at VivoCity. We had to disembark the train at VivoCity, make a U-turn round and enter the train again. Silly, but it was allowed (they should just allow us to remain in the train). We disembarked at Imbiah Station where our car was parked and we drove home for dinner.

Thus ended our Islander weekend. You can't believe the number of Express tickets I have amassed...

Chinese New Year!

CNY 3rd Day (Tue)
This was a really long day for us... and we were supposed to be mourning...hmmm...

1st Stop: Our aunt or who me & my sis call "Ma Kor". This our Dad's only surviving elder sister. Thought we should visit her while she's still alive. Being the eldest, my aunt was the matriach of the family and she wielded alot of influence in my dad's family circles. My sis and I simply did not want any involvement, so we simply laid low. My aunt is still very fiesty but she has mellowed down a lot because of age and illness. The kids had a mighty fine time playing with my cousin's kids who were also at her place. We had a nice simple home-cooked meal of macaroni soup for lunch there. This is a nice shot of my aunt and all the kids.


2nd Stop: TT's badminton kaki's place. This is one intriguing home. His friend did the interior design himself and hired and fired a number of contractors along the way to get the job done. All the cabinets and compartments are cleverly consealed to keep the clutter away from sight. His home is a total opposite of ours! haha! As much as I admired the ingenuity and neatness, it wasn't exactly what I would wish for in my own home. Perhaps...I may do it while we were still childless, but no way I could design such a home with the kids around. I'm more practical than I am anal! But I would certainly want to borrow some storage and space-saving ideas. Still, it's an impressive and tasteful home worth applauding.. clap-clap-clap! I've not taken photos for fear of copyright infringement! Anyway, we managed to watch the movie Ice Age 2 projected to a big screen in his darkened living room... yeah, just like in a cinema. These are the kids playing downstairs at the playground after this visit.

3rd Stop: Another of TT's badminton kaki's place. The whole gang from the 2nd Stop went over to another kaki's place for dinner. This time it was a 2-storey house in the East. This other friend has 4 boys. Three of which are 4-year old triplets! TT spent the evening gambling with playing cards with his other kakis while the kids entertained themselves around the house. To put it mildly, I was quite bored. I had to signal to TT a few times for about an hour before he stopped playing. By then it was already 9.45pm and the kids looked visibly tired.

Poor Isaac could only take short naps while travelling from one place to another. But I think he enjoyed the visitations. I had a mother's foresight to get both kids take a bath at the home of our 3rd stop. Can't imagine having them sleep through the night in the whole day's sweat and grime! Isaac was knocked out on the way home in the car. We only had to put on his diapers and long jammies when we carried him to bed. Cheryl slept in the car too, but we managed to get her to change to her jammies before she actually went to bed.

CNY 2nd Day (Mon)
We visited TT's aunt in the morning. Originally we thought they were "pantang", and were planning not to visit her. But she said as long as we were not wearing those little mourning taggies, it was ok to visit. Oo..kay... whatever...

We originally wanted to go to VivoCity for lunch but there was a terrible jam on the way there, so we detoured to Safra Mt. Faber taking our chance of the restaurants there being open. They were, so we ate at the Chinese restaurant there. Weren't actually planning to have an expensive meal, but ended up eating one of the CNY set meals costing $188. It was just perfect for 4 adults (me, TT, TT's mum and my maid) and the two kids. Even though the food's not halal, there wasn't any pork dishes, so my maid could take all the dishes. We had shark's fin soup, abalone, chinese mushroom and lettuce, steamed fish and ee-fu noodles. We packed the yu-sheng.

In the afternoon, TT's family came over to our place to visit. We asked to help us eat our new year goodies, including some yummy gourmet bak-kwa! TT had booked the badminton court for 2 hours for my nephews. We just cooked a simple dinner of fried rice, ngoh hiang and fried vege for everyone.

We managed to catch the fireworks again tonight.

CNY 1st Day (Sun)
In the morning we got the kids dressed up. Cheryl in a yellow dress, and Isaac in a blue Thomas the Tank Engine T-shirt. He chose this over some chinky orange red T-shirt! So young, so fussy! I decided not to dress them in traditional chinese garb this year, 'cos it's only worn once and such a waste of money... Didn't really have time to buy too because my Dad passed away.

We got the kids to "pai nian" to me with oranges. Boy, it wasn't easy to get Isaac to do this for the camera! We ended up with a pair of bruised oranges after a series of abuse by Isaac (rolling, throwing, even kicking the oranges!) In exchange, I gave them their ang pows together with their piggy banks. Below is family shot taken by our maid after about 8 attempts.

Then it was off to my mother-in-law's place. I gave out red packets to my nephews since my in-laws didn't mind. This is pic with my MIL, SIL and nephews. My elder SIL's family is not in the picture.

We stayed till mid noon before returning home. We would be having our reunion dinner with my sis family that evening. My mum decided to hold it at my place since most of the food was in my fridge. We had pseudo steamboat... my mum precooked all the separate ingredients in advance, so that we could pick and choose what we want into our soup. I much prefer it this way, not so messy and the food cooked to perfection. I never quite liked traditional steamboat, everybody dumps everything in and in the end it gets all fished out together in one big unappetizing mess. Worse if someone cracks an egg in the soup as well.

I gave out the red packets, orange and green piggy banks to Lauren and Oli. We managed to catch the CNY fireworks from our window at 9pm.

CNY Eve (Sat)
We did more spring cleaning today. This is Cheryl helping to wipe the TV (like real). Mum cooked some sweet longan soup soup with sweetened ginko nuts which we ate before midnight...hmmmm.. couldn't wait for the new year lah! The kids went to bed before midnight, so only TT and I managed to catch the fireworks from our window at midnight.

CNY Reunion Dinner (Fri)
We had our reunion dinner for TT's side early this year on Friday evening. Our company didn't give us any half day, so I made my way to Tampines after work while TT brought the kids there a little earlier. We had steamboat, which was the reunion dinner option for the past few years, since my aging MIL did not really have the mood nor energy to do anymore major cooking.

Festive Decorations

For the past few years my CNY decor was actually our Christmas tree re-adorned with chinesey ornaments! Yes, really! Silver balls and snowmen replaced with little fire crackers, tiny red scrolls and plastic mandarin oranges. I was simply too lazy to pack up the christmas tree, so I just redecorated it... So clever right, I thought... Yeah, but apparently it was a sight too disturbing to take in for some of our visitors.

This year I decided to abandon this because the tree was just taking too much space in our living room. I reverted back to normal festive decorations, and Cheryl has contributed some too, thanks to her art and craft sessions at school. Cheryl painted this word "chun" (spring) in school and we pasted it upside down on our front door. I think her writing is not bad for a pre-schooler. The couplets I bought at $1 each. They were the only ones I could find that were not too gaudy or chinky.

This lantern was also done at school with the help of her teachers. Using the square red packets given out by DBS Bank this year, I made another 2 more lanterns. It uses 6 square red packets and it's not difficult to make, I'm sure you can figure out from the photo.

With Cheryl's help, I hung various CNY ornaments on the shelf above our TV. These are some of the ornaments I usually decorate the Christmas tree with in previous years.

This coming year being the year of the pig, I decided to give my 2 kids and 2 nieces a piggy bank each together with their red packets. I managed to get these at $4.90 each at Guardian Pharmacy. Yellow for Cheryl, Blue for Isaac, Green for Oli, and Orange for Lauren. I think the kids will like them. I managed to find red packets that will fit into the transparent plastic container for the pigs. I also put two $1 coins into each piggy bank so that the pigs won't go hungry!

My CREATIVE MP3 Players Collection

Just for fun, I decided to take a pic of the collection of MP3 players I have. I've bought other models for friends and family, but these are my own. The first three are MuVo TX FM players of different capacities (Silver:128MB, White: 256MB, Blue: 512MB). The one with an orange dial is the ZenV Plus 1G, and big square one is the MuVo2 FM 5G. The MuVo TX FM players are rather old models and slight bulky in today's standard, but I like it because I can just pull it out to use as a thumb drive. They also have FM and I can do FM recording. In fact all the models I bought with FM because I listen to radio more than to ripped MP3 music.

The range of prices that these players cost me is also something quite interesting. These are what I paid for them in ascending order:
1) $1
2) $8
3) $29
4) $60
5) $124

Can you guess which player matches which price? BTW this is a trick question, so don't bother to try...hehe...Here are the answers:
1) $1 - ZenV Plus 1G. Yes!! I kid you not! Actually all staff were given a $150 Creative Store voucher during our 25th Anniversary last December and I decided to buy this player which was priced at $151. So in effect it costs me $1 lah! This is one of Creative's current players with radio and video playback.

2) $8 - MuVo TX FM 128MB (Silver). Just bought this from our recent CNY Staff sale because it was cheap. Capacity a bit small though. Maybe let Cheryl use it next time for school? My colleague also had the idea of buying these $8 128MB players (there were other models) and put them in red packets and give them as gifts during Chinese New Year.

3) $29 - MuVo TX FM 512MB (Blue). Also just bought during the CNY Staff sale. Will probably pass it to TT.

4) $60 - MuVo2 FM 5G. Bought during the CNY Staff sale. I will be using it more like a portable hard disk, storing larger files like videos and photos. This is an old model, I think not available in retail stores anymore.

5) $124 - MuVo TX FM 256MB (White). Bought this in May 2005, almost 2 years ago and have been using it till now, esp. for file transfer and radio listening. I like it, that's why I bought the other two MuVo TX FM players during the CNY sale. Look at how much it cost me then!

A Romantic Valentine's Day Not

Aiyah, see what married life with kids can reduce Valentine's Day to...
Our original plan was actually to eat the famous Still Road black pepper crab with my sis and Mel (without the kids) on Thursday (as shop is closed on Wednesdays). The four of us are all suckers for crab... But decided not to because we feared the price of seafood could be jacked up during the CNY period. So we just decided to meet up at Chinatown with the kids. In order to avoid the hassle of feeding the kids dinner outside, we had them take dinner at home first.

On the way to Chinatown, we got unwittingly held up in slow traffic, so we made a detour and ended up in Tiong Bahru market. So TT & I had an absolutely unromantic dinner of prawn noodle soup, char kway teow and chwee kueh! haha

After that we managed to meet my sis and family along the crowded streets of Chinatown. My guess was the crowd was not at its peak, but even then it was enough to put me off. Especially with two kids in tow. Didn't buy anything, just didn't have the mood. Since there was school the next day, we didn't stay long there anyway. So that's how we celebrated VD. I'm sure we'll make up for it with black pepper crab another day...*drooling*

Sunny Sunday

In the morning we headed to East Coast Park while we waited for TT who had to visit the temple to perform some prayer rites to his own late dad and brother. The kids rode their kick scooters and played with sand. I guess they sorta missed the outdoors since they were pretty couped up at home during my dad's passing last weekend. To my dismay, the sun was scorching! Kinda wished for the cooling wet weather we had in Dec/Jan.

For Cheryl's art class, they were made to draw some pigs (see pic). Pretty cute. Put it up in a prominent place in the living room as CNY decorations. Did more spring-cleaning and packing. Nothing else exciting happened this weekend.

Spring Cleaning

We spent the whole morning packing up stuff from my late dad's workplace and also from where he was staying.

Also did some spring cleaning in preparation for the Lunar New Year. Because of my Dad's death, we will supposedly not be celebrating CNY in "full force"... This is not by choice, since we're not superstitious. But certain relatives are, so we were told not to visit, since we would be bringing along "bad vibes" into their homes if we visit (or something to that effect). Along the same vein, we're also not supposed to be giving out red packets or "ang pows", Yippee!!! But I guess I can still give ang pows to my nieces and visit my mum and sis since the bad vibes will be flowing internally anyway! haha... And anybody who doesn't mind bad-luck-infused ang pows, I will willingly give!

At night we brought our kids and nieces for a car ride through Chinatown just to soak in the sights. The light-up was totally unimpressive and the place really crowded. Being crowd-phobic, we never stepped out of the car. Saw crazy people queueing for bak-kwa... By the time we brought the kids back, they were asleep, except for Isaac who had a nap in the afternoon.

Rest In Peace, Papa

The last five days really whizzed past in a blur. It all started on Friday
morning (2 Feb) when I got a call at the office that my dad had a heart
attack while he was at his desk. He could not be resuscitated and was already
dead when I reached the hospital (SGH)'s A&E. To cut the story short, it was
non-stop frenzy of rushing from one place to another: hospital, morgue, my
dad's place, casket, his workplace etc; answering and making many phone calls
and messages from both my own and my late dad's handphone; making all the
wake, funeral and cremation arrangements; receiving relatives and friends at
the wake, putting up obituary ad, getting miscellaneous paperwork done.
Frankly, there wasn't any time to feel sad and mope. We're all shocked at his
sudden death because he was always fit and active. Nevertheless he was
actually already quite old (71 years old). We're comforted by the fact that
he didn't have to endure prolonged suffering and pain before he breathed his
last. Everyone, including my mum, is holding up fine and the kids do not
appear to be too affected by his passing. They still don't quite understand
what death is.(Will fill in with more details and some morbid pics (just kidding) later.)

Now with those things out of the way, the sense of loss and the reality that
he is truly gone is slowly creeping up on me, especially when I'm sorting out
his personal stuff like his bag, wallet, medicine, driving license, ez-link
cards etc. There was some cash in his wallet and I unconciously left it in
there...as if I had expected to one day return the wallet back to him again.

Papa, we will miss you...

Day 5 - Collection of Ashes and Columbarium

So what should we do with our dad's ashes?? I expressed my dilemma to the Franciscan priest who did my dad's funeral mass and he suggested that I divide the ashes into two. One half can be put in the columbarium and the other half to be scattered in the sea. The reason why ashes are kept in a columbarium is for loved ones to have some place to come to to remember the deceased. Afterall, the spirits of the dead have gone elsewhere. On Resurrection day, all ashes will gather from all over and believers would be whole again. Well at least that's what we believe. I already know that, but just needed assurance from the priest that a sea scattering would be OK too. So... we finally decided to put him in the columbarium because I guess we still wish to remember him in some tangible way. It's not that we want to go against his wishes... we hope his spirit is in a better place, no matter where the final resting place of his ashes may be.

So in the morning, we picked my sis up and we had breakfast at Clementi Central hawker centre. I had malay nasi lemak topped with some yummy sambal cockles! Thereafter we went to the St Mary's columbarium to make arrangements for a niche there. My dad's ashes will be placed in a niche beside his other deceased family members. We bought a marble urn and and then rushed to pick Oli up from school and dropped her off at our place. We had lunch at ABC market before going to Singapore Casket to get my dad's ashes. They had collected the ashes from Mandai Columbarium on our behalf.

Then went back to Clementi to pick Lauren up from her school bus. We went to Alexandra Village where Lauren had her lunch while I tried to close my dad's bank account. I had to get some other things done before I could do so, so it will have to be done another day. We brought the urn back to my place for a while before we proceeded, kids and all, back to St. Mary's columbarium at around 4.30pm.

A Fransican brother was present to do the rites and prayers for the urn to be placed in the niche. The niche would be temporarily sealed until the inscription of the plaque is ready. Here you can see Bro. John preparing the niche, and the marble urn with my dad's ashes is on the table below. While we were doing the prayers, the kids were rather naughty, messing around with the pebbles and water features around the serene columbarium surroundings. Luckily the Bro. John was very nice.

Phew! Another mission completed today! I hope we made the right decision... If not, my sis and I are expecting dreams and visions telling us otherwise! Will post blog if we have any supernatural encounters...*twilight zone music*

Day 4 - Funeral Mass & Cremation

In the morning we got the kids changed up. Had some trouble finding something suitable for Cheryl to wear for the funeral ... her wardrobe was mostly cheery pink! Finally I found a long sleeve shirt which just had a little unnoticeable red star. We reached the casket about 10.15am. Since there were no visitors yet and the kids were quite bored, we let the kids play some games with rubber bands near dad's coffin (see pic on the right).

We took turns having lunch at the nearby Lavendar food centre. Isaac was cranky by noon time, which was unusual, and so he took a short nap. Which was just as well, because then he managed to be awake for the whole funeral thingy. At about 1pm, the Franciscan priest from St Mary's, Fr. Jivan, came to say some prayers. At 1.45pm, the coffin was closed and we had a short procession behind hearse before the guests boarded a chartered bus which would bring them to St. Mary of the Angels Church at Bukit Batok. The kids wanted to take the bus, so we allowed them to do so with our maid. Apparently Isaac enjoyed the bus ride (I think that's all he remembered of the funeral).


The rest of us drove in our cars behind the hearse. The Funeral Mass was at 2.30pm. This was my first time at this church since its renovation. I read first reading and responsorial psalm while my cousin did the rest. Unfortunately TT didn't manage to take any photos at the church. After the funeral service, again we followed the hearse a short way along the driveway as if we were sending my dad off somewhere. Again the kids took the bus while the rest of us drove to Mandai Crematorium. This is like one big excursion for them!

This was my first time at Mandai Crematorium. Everything was very clean, automated and efficient. Almost impersonal. We had a short service and thereafter guests were allowed to put flowers into the coffin before they closed it for the last time. We were then led to the viewing gallery where we could see the coffin being trolleyed automatically towards the furnace. We said prayers as the coffin proceeded slowly. This was certainly less dramatic than having people heaving and shoving the coffin into the incinerator at the old crematorium at Mt. Vernon. So this is it... this is how it all ends...

The chartered bus was going back to Lavendar Street, so Isaac was disappointed that he could not take the bus back. On the way back home the kids were tired and took a nap. Later we all had a dinner of pizza at our place. That night we finally managed to get a good rest, but poor TT had gotten a cough and runny nose from all the running around, lack of sleep and funeral palour air con...

Day 3 - Funeral Wake

The kids didn't follow us to the wake today, they just stayed at our place with our maid and mum to play. We opened the palour room at about 10.30am and received more visitors today. Here's a pic of the funeral palour. We met up with many relatives and old neighbours and friends whom we hadn't seen since we were kids. It's a pity we only meet up in occasions like these.

In the afternoon, TT took Cheryl for her art class and at the same time fetched my mum to the wake. We catered dinner of fried bee hoon and red bean soup for the guests at the casket. We reached home after midnight. The kids were already asleep. Lauren and Oli slept over at our place again tonight.

Day 2 - Collection at the Morgue

Had to wake up early this morning about 7am so that we can reach the morgue (SGH Blk 9 along Outram) at 8am to claim my dad's body. Cheryl also woke up and we told her we were going to "collect Kong Kong".

TT, being in the police force before, warned me that there might be "kaypoh" reporters and photographers to hound the bereaved families at the morgue. However when we reached there, we found that it was longer like that. There were signs saying that the press were not allowed at the premises. There were several other families there too. I met the Investigating Officer assigned to me and passed him my dad's medication. We had to wait a while and then the family members had to identify the respective bodies. One by one, we were taken to a room and I was able to see my dad's body through a glass window, a bit like doing a criminal line-up identification. This took less than 10 seconds. TT said it was much better now because previously he remembered that family members had to enter the freezing morgue, walk pass some other bodies, then the cloth will be uncovered for the family to confirm the identity of the body.

Then we had to wait again while all the Officers gathered to review their cases with the Coroner. Fortunately my dad's body did not require an autopsy and so we would be able to take the body back in about an hour's time. We decided to drop by my dad's office to clear some stuff there. The office management wanted to perform some cleansing rituals and needed us to help them remove some of my dad's religious items. We would clear his other stuff another day. Then we returned to the morgue to get my dad's death cert and collect the body. The guy from Singapore Casket was there to take the body for embalming. Thereafter we went to my dad's place to get his passport photo which would be needed for his obituary and also to be enlarged for the casket.

We went to my sis' place for lunch. And since we couldn't do anything else till 7pm when the palour would be ready, I attended the music class with Cheryl. Mel and TT went to SPH to get the obituary published in the next day's Sunday Times. Then we all had a quick dinner at our place before everyone,including the kids, headed to the palour at Lavendar Street. The kids were quite excited by the new environment and even helped to arrange the sweets, peanuts, melon seeds and red threads on the paper plate for each table. I suspected they just wanted to eat the sweets.

We had quite a number of visitors, mainly relatives whom we had informed and dad's colleagues. By 10pm the kids were quite bored and so TT brought them back to our home. Lauren and Oli stayed over at our place. I'm sure the kids had fun with the sleepover. After they had gone to bed, TT returned to the wake. It was almost midnight when we closed the palour room and headed home. I was really tired, just took a bath and went to bed.

Day 1 - Heart Attack

I was in the office when I got a call from my Dad's colleague at around 10.30am. One of them had found him slumped on his chair at his desk. He was already not breathing. They called an ambulance and also got a doctor to do CPR on him in the meantime. But all the efforts to revive him were futile. Nobody knows how long he had been slumped at his chair. It was a case of D.O.A (Dead on Arrival) when they brought him to the Singapore General Hospital.

TT & I were on the way to SGH when his colleague called me again to inform me that he could not be revived. I was already mentally prepared for the news because when I was first informed, the situation didn't sound good at all. I broke the news to my sister who was also pretty shocked.

At SGH I identified my dad's body and they returned his belongings to me. Soon after, my sis also came with Oli to view the body. My mum took the news quite cooly and said she did not wish to see the body. She told us to decide and handle the funeral arrangements. Because nobody saw how my father died, it was what they call a "coroner's case". They could not release my dad's body to us yet. Instead it would be transferred to the morgue (Centre of Forensic Medicine ) and the police's Investigating Officer (IO) would be contacting us soon.
The Officer requested that we try to bring along dad's medical records and medication the next day when claiming the body at the morgue. With evidence of an existing medical history, an autopsy may be avoided, and this would expedite the release of the body.

After a lunch of our favourite chicken rice near my sis' place, we went to my dad's place and managed to find the medication he was currently taking. We also took a full set of clothes, including his suit, socks and shoes. We would need to come back another day to bring the rest of his stuff back.

After some discussion, we decided to hold his wake at the Singapore Casket at Lavender Street instead of the church at St. Mary's which is at Bukit Batok. Although it would be more straightforward to have everything held at the church, we decided that it would be more convenient for visitors to visit the wake at a more central location. We also had to get a priest and arrange the time for the funeral mass which we decided to hold on Monday. We also discussed what should be printed on the obituary which would appear on Sunday instead of Saturday, since we do not yet have the death cert.

As you read my account, it isn't apparent how much transpired as we decided on the various arrangements. It wasn't as simple as we thought. Relatives tried to pressure us to hold the funeral on Tuesday as Monday was the fourth day and apparently "pantang" (inauspicious) for the Chinese. Although we respected their views, we felt it was superstitious since we are christians anyway. So we stood our ground. What should or should not be put in the coffin to be incinerated was another minor issue. Whether or not my dad's ashes were to be scattered at sea or be put in a columbarium also became a major bone of contention. My dad had expressed to some, including my mum (but not to me), that he wanted his ashes to be thrown in the sea. However because of my dad's easy-going personality, nobody could ascertain whether he was saying this out of jest or really serious about it. For the record, at this point in time on Saturday, my sis & I wanted to scatter him at sea. But there were violent objections from my aunt (dad's elder and only surviving sister), as well as my cousins.

That night, despite being exhuasted, I tossed and turned in bed. The reality of my dad's death had not yet sunk in and I had so many things on my mind.

My Dad

My late Dad and my Mum have been separated for more than 10 years. For as long as I can remember, their relationship had never been really good. He was never physically abusive or anything, but I've always felt he was not quite cut out for parenthood. Although he did look after me & my sis as children, most of the responsibility fell on our mum. Anyway, when they finally parted ways, I was already grown up and started working. The separation was not really a traumatic experience for me because we weren't that close as father and daughter. After that we still kept in touch and met up occasionally.

When the grandchildren came along, he visited us more frequently, sometimes bringing the kids out and giving them treats. Occasionally he would invite all of us for dinner, including my mum. But my sis & I know and understand why my mum would never be reconciled with him.

Dad was a sportsman, playing soccer and tennis when he was younger, and subsequently golf as he got older. He occasionally played golf with my brother-in-law (my sis' hubby). He was very fit and active and continued to work as a cleaning supervisor till the day he died. At work he was efficient and meticulous. He didn't do the cleaning himself, but oversaw the cleaners and maintenance in various commercial buildings. He had a history of high blood pressure and hypertension and was taking medication for it. From what we saw and gathered from friends, he was extremely careful with his diet. The last thing people who knew him expected was for him to die from a heart attack.

Dad was, as my sis & I say, a free spirit. He couldn't be tied down. He was a well-liked, jovial, happy-go-lucky guy, often called a joker by his friends and colleagues. On the day he died, I discovered that he had planned to go to JB with some friends for dinner! His death was totally unexpected.