No … he hasn’t passed away, not at time of writing this post, and I hope not for a long time to come, of course. But I have already lost him … to dementia. I’m going to tell the story of how we got here, and how I have now accepted that the man I see in front of me every day isn’t really my dad anymore.
Dad’s early years and life outside of the family
Dad was the eldest son in the family. My grandparents came from 金门, round about 1939/40, and my dad was born here in Singapore. He grew up in the kampongs at Pasir Panjang, where my grandparents ran a provision store. Including him, there were 9 siblings … 6 boys, 3 girls.
He barely finished secondary school in Pasir Panjang Secondary School. Came out to work at 15 years of age, I believe. The one strong suit my dad had was that he was a very strong swimmer, spending a lot of his childhood days at the seafront at Pasir Panjang, swimming and diving for clams, etc. That would be the path for him later on … swimming, what he did best.
I did not recall dad having much of a social life. He never talked to me much about his younger days. What he did tell me were sketchy at best. Stories like:
- He recalled an incident as a kid, 3-4 years old, riding pillion on my grandfather’s bicycle, being stopped by Jap soldiers along Keppel Road. Not sure why it was, but dad said he recalled grandfather kneeling and begging them not to shoot and let them go. He recalled there had been executions and heads being hung from lamp posts, but not sure if it was in the same incident that he saw them.
- He said that Goh Chok Tong was his primary school mate. And they played water polo together at Tiger Swimming Club (now defunct). The former Prime Minister of Singapore would, of course, go on to Raffles Institution after Pasir Panjang Primary School, while dad went on to Pasir Panjang Secondary but never completed school.
- As a teenager, young men, dad and maybe a friend might go into town early on a friday at 5-6pm, start one movie at Odeon, then another at Capitol or Lido, then catch the last bus close to midnight back home.
- Before getting married, dad was the one who would drive my grandma (the matriach of the family) around for all her appointments, such as the hair dressers, etc. when my grandma had late night mahjong sessions at a friend’s, dad would wait in the car till she was done to send her home.
- He had some friends he did hang out with, not sure if this was before or after marriage, but there was a certain day every night at the old Majestic Theatre / Nightclub, where the front table was reserved for him and his friends, and they’d show up by 8 pm, a few bottles of Martells on the table. If no one showed up by 8pm, then they will give the table up. I recalled that dad did come home from time to time, looking drunk and coming home at 9pm thereabouts, and heading straight to bed.
- Because of dad’s connection to the swimming world, he had friends in some sports associations, life guards, etc. who would get free tickets for the Malaysia Cup football season, and for football matches at the old National Stadium. We’d get quite a no. of such tickets, and he would distribute them to my uncles. As a young kid, I loved football, and still do, and even if my dad wasn’t able to make it to the matches, my uncle would come by to get me. I was useful, as I would go buy the coffees for them, and myself, before the match start and just before halftime, to skip the queues. We hardly ever buy from the guys who come by shouting ‘drinks, karipap, poppiah, kopi-o!’, cos they cost a bit more then buying direct from the stores themselves. (And as a kid, I was told my uncles and aunts loved to take me out to movies etc, cos I was never difficult as a baby or kid and cry and make noise like the rest of my cousins. I would just sit there quietly. I bothered no one. So maybe that’s why they liked to take this stupid kid out. He didn’t open his mouth much to voice anything. Easy to manage. No drama, this stupid kid.)
In the later years, while I was in secondary school, I did not recall dad coming home late drunk anymore. He stopped seeing his friends, or hardly. May hear him mention some names of friends from time to time, but it never really struck me that he had any close friend, or a best friend. I don’t know who his best man was at his wedding. Dad was a stubborn man, not very sociable, set in his ways at the time.
My dad, the man, before his stroke
Dad was a tough guy. A swimming instructor of good repute in his hay day. He was the President of the Swimming Teachers Association, and Chief Examiner for Singapore’s chapter of the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS). Some highlights of his career would include being the swimming instructor to Goh Keng Swee and some of his children, and attending an investiture for the RLSS at Buckingham Palace, where he was presented his medal and certificate of service by the Queen, no less. He spent many years as an in-house swimming coach at The Tanglin Club, before coming out on his own as a freelance swimming instructor. He forged a strong reputation and word of mouth as the man that expats and elites in Singapore go to as a swimming instructor, especially for babies from the age of 1 year old. He has overly tanned dark skin due to his days in the sun/water, and my family (grandma, uncles, aunties) nicknamed him ‘水牛’ in Hokkien. As much as it was a reference to his job and appearance, it was also a reference to his stubbornness and temper.
I wasn’t sure what really happened in my early years, for I did not have any memories of my childhood up to the age of 5 years old maybe … my memories were made up of photos I saw, and nothing more. Maybe I’m the same as Rachael, an experimental Nexus-7 Replicant in Blade Runner, replicant fed with aritifical memories. I know we moved out from our family home (grandparents’) at Pasir Panjang into a HDB 4-room flat at Telok Blangah Heights, at around 4-5 years of age. Word was that Dad had a falling out with my grandma. Disputes over money, I was told. Dad never spoke about it to me. An uncle gave me some details. I don’t know who was right or wrong, but it resulted in us moving out. The first years weren’t pleasant, as I can recall we lived in the flat with just mattresses on the floor and eating brownbag meals sitting on the floor. Things did improve pretty quickly and we soon had a proper home with furniture, TV and beds. But dad was hard at work. I hardly saw him in my younger days. He’d leave for work very early in the morning, round about 6am, and would not return till past 8pm most nights. There were the occasional nights, as I had mentioned above, when dad got home drunk from a night out drinking with his friends, reeked of alcohol and would jump straight into bed.
Dad ruled the household with a heavy hand. The most feared ‘weapon’ he had was the 马鞭 , with the whip detached, the rod was very thick still, and my elder brother (6 years older) and sister (4 years older) had been on the receiving end of it on a number of occasions. Whipped on the backside, the skin opens and one would have difficulties sitting down for a couple of days. I was never on the receiving end of it, and the 2 of them constantly reminded me of it throughout my time growing up, saying that I was spared the rod as I was dad’s favorite, and maybe that was why they bullied me back then, and I did suffer some physical abuse from my brother, which was obviously his form of retribution taken out on me. As he started growing up to be bigger and stronger, while not being able to overpower my dad, he would start to take it out on my mum. But mum is a philistine, and for her, the eldest son was her treasure, and she would fall in line and give him absolutely everything, despite his abusive, idiotic and spoilt behavior.
I resented by brother for as long as I can remember. He was a right down asshole. Unintelligent to say the least but had an ego of Mount Everest. I could go on about him and his idiotic ways but that’s not the point of this post. Suffice to say, I hated that he would say claim he is the best brother in the world to me in front of everyone, but he is selfish, obnoxious, an utter moron in so many ways, and he would hit me when he feels like it, when I simply refuse to get him a cup of water when he ordered me to do so when sitting around doing absofuckinglutely nothing. Didn’t have the strength to get himself a cup of water but had it in him to pounce and hit me when i simply refused. I was 7 at the time, I recalled. He had really dirty habits … when my dad was not home, he’d behave like a slob and walked around only in his underwear. He was already in secondary school at the time. Would sit spread eagled in front of the TV and put his hands into his underwear to touch his privates and then smell his hands thereafter … loves the smell of his own pee … disgusting person in character and habits. I hate it when he then comes to talk to me and wants to be touchy feely … I’d tell him not to touch me and that its disgusting. And I will get whacked again, if he felt like it. An absolutely disgusting, nauseating, repugnant, vulgar of a creature in every sense of the word.
Mum’s favourite pastime was spending 2-3 hours a day on the phone with her sisters, gossiping and making up stories about anyone and everyone, and as a kid, I recalled that some of the shit she was making up was so preposterous, I actually shot back, ‘why are you making up all these lies about my aunts and grandma?’, to which she simply waved me away saying, ‘你什么都不会’, in Hokkien. You can’t make that shit up (punt intended).
As for me, I was never whacked in that manner by my dad, cos the truth was simple … I just didn’t get into trouble like they did. And in the early years, dad was always tired and angry during these early years, and those 2 idiots did their best to give him the ammunition to dish out the canings.
Dad’s freelancing years
Round about when I started secondary school, was when dad started to go freelance, and that was when I saw more of him, and he began to mellow. His time became more manageable, and he had more time to spend with us on weekends, his favourite thing being to go around People’s Park to eat and window shop, then go Emporium at Bukit Merah for some groceries shopping.
My brother was still constantly getting into trouble. I remembered he got into trouble with his army sergeant over a personal matter, and he was threatened, and my uncles were mobilized to get him out of trouble. (My uncles were quite bad asses in the day …) There were also more fights between my brother and my mum, as my brother was always asking for more money to get what he wanted, buying expensive branded goods and indulging in hi-fi equipment, trying to keep up with The Jones (his friends from Singapore Polytechnic). My sister was just in another world of her own … fat and lazy, but you cannot tell her that else all hell breaks loose. Her mantra in life was that it was always someone / something else’s fault. Never hers. Sometimes best friends with my brother, sometimes mortal enemies, fighting and door slamming. I recalled once I pushed my sister into her room and asked her to lock the door while my brother came running towards the door brandishing a kitchen knife. I can’t recall what the fight was about … I just recall that it happened. Dad had no knowledge of the shit that went on at home while he was out working. We didn’t dare to say anything, for fear of retribution from my brother. I would only tell my dad years later, when he moved in with me, already a stroke patient by then. My mum would, of course, protect that rascal over me and my sister.
I recalled when my brother hit me and made me pay for the repair of his Nakamichi cassette deck. You see, he was in the army at the time, and told me to make sure to play his warm up his hi-fi system every day. I did as he asked, sometimes playing the vinyls, sometimes the cassette deck. One day, the cassette deck broke down. So on that very weekend he booked out and I told him about it, he laid the blame on me, hit me, made me take it for repairs and I had to pay for it. $20, I recalled. A lot of money back then for a kid on pocket money of $1 a day.
Dad never knew much about what was happening at home. I was too afraid to complain about the abuse. I never really told him. Much later, during the Maysprings years, I did mention to him. He felt sad and said he would’ve done something about it had he known. He forgot about it immediately after I told him, memory and processing already affected by his stroke.
Dad’s homecoming
It was round about the time when I was in Secondary One, that my dad finally came ‘home’. A huge dinner was organized at Seafood 88 at Pasir Panjang, where we booked out the entire place to celebrate my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Pretty much the entire clan was invited, with friends and relatives all over from Singapore and Malaysia showing up. 70 over tables, I recall being told.
Dad was overseas at the time, at the RLSS Investiture in London, but managed to get an earlier flight back and attended the event. Up till that point in time, while there was contact between him and his siblings, that was the first time he had spoken to or seen my grandma since we moved out. There was more contact with my grandma and uncles etc., from thereon. (No mention of grandpa here and ever, cos he was an alcoholic, who allegedly never raised his children and gave away our families monies to his siblings … He barely spoke to me and I frankly do not have much recollection of the man, except when I saw him, he was usually, well, drunk …)
What dad didn’t know around that time was, as I was growing up, my resentment towards my brother was getting very strong. I’ve had enough of his bullying, dirty and disgusting ways, and he had stopped attempting to get physical with me or threatening to hit me as I had shot up in height and, while still thin, was no longer easily cowered by him. Think I started to shoot back at him, talked back, even tried to pick fights with him. Culminated in one big fight, my dad had to separate us … I moved out to live with my grandma for the next few years. I was in JC1 at the time. Dad would start coming over to grandma’s more to see me, and hence also get to spend more time with his family from whom he had been estranged for a long time. Something positive came out of that, at least.
Staying at my grandparents would last through JC and NS years, until year 1 in NUS, when I was accepted and moved into Kent Ridge Hall. I would stay there for the next 4 years till graduation. I really lived there … I did not go ‘home’ on weekends, nor for CNY or any holiday. Reunion dinner would depend on which house hosted on which day. My mum would refuse to go to my grandparents’, so I would have to choose if it falls on the same day. But I’d come back to my room at KR thereafter. Come to think of it, I was ‘homeless’ from a young age. Grandparents’ place wasn’t really home either. I was never made to feel really welcomed. Hence, I was glad my time in the hall came along.
The Stroke
Then, in 1996, my 3rd year in NUS, about 25 years ago, dad suffered a stroke while going about conducting a routine swimming lesson, demonstrating a turn in the pool. Ever since that day, his movement slowed down significantly, and his mental abilities inhibited.
No happily ever after
The initial years after his stroke, he still lived at home at Telok Blangah Heights. I was still in university and stayed in Kent Ridge Hall. I didn’t go home on weekends nor the holidays. I already didn’t get along with my siblings, and my mother lived in another world mentally, and I had lived away from home since I was 17 years old, with my grandparents, army, Kent Ridge Hall in university. Always a guest wherever I was, not a proper place to call home. I would see my dad on weekends.
After graduation in 1997, I started work at JTC, and lived in an apartment in Choa Chu Kang that my aunts owned, but weren’t living in nor renting out at the time. I stayed rent free, bar utilities. But conversations with my dad and questioning that delinquent of a family that lived off him still, it was clear that my mum, my brother and sister had ganged up on him and were treating him rather badly. As I’ve alluded to above, my family is very dysfunctional, so don’t even attempt to ask questions like ‘It can’t be, a mother cannot be like that’ … one can see by now, many don’t live in the world I’ve come from, and maybe you should stop reading now for what comes after this will seem like a horror movie for a fragile, entitled and never had an ounce hardship in this life mind/brain.
There was an incident which I had documented, I brought my dad to the doctor to have his bruises examined cos he told me that my brother had hit him. When confronted about it, my family tried to say this old man, who by then had no strength to lift a carton of drinks, was the abuser and he had hit them. Pretty amusing now that I look back at how stupid people can be when they try to blatantly lie in your face, but at that moment, I had fire in my eyes and if not being stopped by my uncles who had accompanied me home to confront them, it could’ve gotten very ugly. Those bastards, the worse type of human scums you can come across in your life. I have no idea how it is that I share a bloodline with them. Perhaps, the joke all those years ago when I was a kid, that I was picked up from the rubbish bin, rang very true indeed. I am in every way different from them. Most importantly, I knew right from wrong. Sad, isn’t it?
Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS)
This uneasy arrangement of him living in his own home with people he raised and took care of, didn’t get to last very long. Fast forward to the year 2000. At the time, HDB had announced that the few blocks around Telok Blangah Heights were to undergo selective enbloc redevelopment (SERS), including my dad’s apartment / block. My ‘family’ tried to keep it from me, but my dad had already shown me the leaflets HDB had sent out, hence I was aware of the situation. I began thinking through and doing my research around what were the implications of SERS, and what was the best options were. Going through all the considerations, I had asked an ex JTC colleague who became a financial planner at the time, a good man, to come up with a structure, something with the compensation that my dad/mum would receive from HDB. (Despite the fact that dad paid for everything while mum was a housewife all her life, the flat was registered in Joint Tenancy, so she is entitled to half, subject to any legal proceedings if there is a decision to split in some shape of form). The compensation wasn’t going to be a lot of money, but I knew my brother wanted every penny of it, and also the new replacement flat that came with SERS. Dad was in no condition to make any decisions, but he did say to me unequivocally, ‘why should these bastards get any money from this?’. I didn’t want anything. I honestly didn’t. I was happy to let my brother, them, have everything. But my dad’s interest needed to be taken care of.
I called a meeting with my brother. I told him, that my proposal was, based on what my financial planner friend came up with, the compensation from HDB would go into a fund, and that fund will pay out US$5k a year for the next 30 years before maturity and lump sum payment to him/them. They get the new flat as well. Only condition, dad gets his own room, and he’d be provided for until the end of his days. I wanted nothing to do with it all, and they can have it all. So long as my dad has a roof over his head and food to go on a daily basis, that’s all that is required. It’s only fair. After all, this was all technically his.
My brother’s response was baffling …’No! This is not fair. You have to be fair! And he won’t get his own room. He will sleep out on the floor in the living room. The flat, money, they are all mine.’ And he walked away.
When you give someone everything and yet they say it’s not fair, you’d think the person is either really stupid, or had another agenda, which I was to find out very soon.
Their evil / sinister plan
A week after that conversation with my brother, I took a half day leave from work to bring my dad out for the day. Over lunch, he suddenly quipped …’I think the other day, your brother made me sign something. I don’t know what it was, I was having a nap when he woke me up to sign it …’ …
My mind went into overdrive. Lucky that my dad still had enough mind to tell me, though he said it casually and thought nothing if it. But I immediately knew what had happened. I should’ve thought of it, that they will stoop to any level to get what they wanted. I immediately brought my dad to the HDB HQ which was then nearby at Bukit Merah, and asked to view any documents that my dad had signed in relation to this SERS process. And true enough, the latest documents in the file was that my dad had signed away his lease to my brother. I was surprised HDB had accepted the document given my dad’s handwriting was already very unstable at the time, and it looked nothing like the signature that they have from him on file, but they accepted it. I wasn’t sure if there would have been more paperwork to follow to effect the transfer of the lease to my brother, but I put a stop to it there and then, had my dad complete a statutory declaration on the spot, to null the document he signed.
The timeline of events that happened after that is blurry … I recalled that I then took dad out for an early dinner, and then back to his soon be to be demolished home. I didn’t know why I did not go up with him to confront those bastards, but I recall letting my dad go back up by himself as usual. Dad had probably told them what happened. I was driving off somewhere, and I recalled receiving a call on my cellphone, and it was my brother screaming expletives on the other end, but aside from all that mess, I could hear him say ‘I’m going to put a $50k bounty on your head!’ … I told him, ‘I’m turning around and I am coming over now, you can settle this in my face if you dare. Lay a finger on my father and you will be sorry, I guarantee you, for I won’t call the police like what uncles have told you, I will take care of you myself.’ … You see, my brother is a bully, but also a coward. He would bully anyone he could. I was abused in some way by him as a kid, he was 6 years older than me. When I got abused as a kid, when my brother got into trouble and started fights with my dad, I would call my uncles, and my uncles were quite bad asses, truth be told, and when they’d show up, he’d cower and almost literally shit in his pants.
I was a big enough boy by then, and my brother didn’t dare to get violent with me anymore. But it wasn’t pretty. Loads of screaming and shouting by him, my sister, and my mother, who screamed into my face in Hokkien, ‘你想要害我没有家住！你想要害我没有家！我没有你这个儿子!’. She repeated it a few times in my face. Everything else that was screamed over the top of our lungs because of this HDB 4-room flat was a blur. This sentence from my mum was what I heard over everything else. I did not reply her, for there is nothing to say, cos no matter how bad a mother she had been to me, she was my mother, and she has just disowned me in my face. Nothing else needed to be said. Nothing else really mattered. The depths these people can sink to …
From that event, till the time the flat was abandoned and they moved into the new flat, time seemed to have flown by. I can recall that my sister tried some last-ditch effort to scare me into making my dad concede his lease to them. She was working as a nurse for a prominent doctor, whose wife was a judge. She threatened me by saying ‘Justice __ said we have right to sue for everything so you be careful.’ … I remembered that I knew she was bluffing, but nevertheless wrote an email to that Justice ___ about it, and Justice ___ of course denied having said anything to that effect at all. But my sister is good at making up lies, and make’em sound real, something she inherited from my mother. I recalled during that time, my uncles and aunties telling me to not blow the matter up any further. My grandma’s health was deteriorating. She has been in and out of the hospital over the last couple of years and it was getting worse. They didn’t tell her what was going on. ‘Don’t bring the family name down any further …’ they said.
Looking back, I now wonder what has the family name gotta do with this, cos I was not really part of the family (although I did owe’em a gratitude for taking me in for 2 years during my JC period, I don’t know if I can ever repay). I wanted to take this matter to court. So it’s a joint tenancy of the current flat so split of the compensation would’ve been default at 50:5o with my dad and mum. But I had intended to contest it given my dad paid for the whole flat and he is the dependent party here, and there’s proof of them attempting to cheat him. But I relented from the pleadings of my family and I have regretted it till this day. Worse advise ever given by anyone, and I was stupid enough to take it. But they did use my grandma and tug on my heartstrings. I don’t blame them. They were thinking for themselves, and the so-called family name. Not for me. Not for my dad. Settled for 50:50, and they got the new flat. But my brother is such a cunning bastard, and structured the new flat as a tenancy in common, with him having 98% and my dad and mum at 1% each. Well, not really cunning, just that my mum and sis are dumb as fuck.
So, come the day when HDB doled out the compensation and they moved into the new flat, those bastards were happy and laughing their way grinning as they signed the documents at HDB. They happily took half the money from the compensation, walked away as if they struck the lottery. I was 28 years old, not eligible for a HDB flat, dad’s name still in that fucking SERS replacement flat that they got. I had to buy private. The compensation money was barely enough to pay the down payment for a private apartment. Had to clear out my bank account. Barely made it into a 79sqm apartment at Maysprings at Petir Road. And I wouldn’t have made it, luckily my friend Xiaoli was working in property agency, and had helped me to this unit that the developer had held on to for a while and decided at that time to let go, at a good price, made better when she decided to forgo her commissions and brought in agency discounts to bring the price down to a level that I was able to afford. I will forever be indebted for the kindness she showed me, for the help she gave me. On the other hand, I received no help at all from my family whatsoever. They were just happy I did not bring down the family name … to hell if we could survive.
The Maysprings years
The 7-8 years in Maysprings were ok for dad. He was still able to go buy his own food from coffee shops downstairs, go down to the pool on his own and back, didn’t need any supervision or help from me, and could pretty much do his own thing. Just had to check in at the end of each day, if he had enough money, had he taken his meds, anything untoward had happened. Mentally though, he was never the same since the stroke. I’d described his mental state in computer terms, that the hard disk drive was intact, but RAM and processors were not working well, bus line had issues preventing proper information flow. His behavior sort of degenerated to become more childlike, and you’d wonder who’s the father and who’s the son when we are sat together.
That was important, cos I was at work most of the time, and I was thankful for that. I was able to have a working life, social life, but there were blips. I had a girlfriend who wasn’t so understanding when I told her of this story. Anyway, she decided her millionaire boss was a better option for her in the end.
Grandparents’ passing
It was also during these years at Maysprings. that both my grandparents passed away, within 6 months of each other. First my grandma, then my grandad. Both funerals were very dicey … cos there were extended family members who wanted to poke their noses into where it doesn’t belong. who wanted to meddle into our business. They would come up to my dad to tell him he should patch things up with my mum and family. They weren’t told what happened, or my uncles and aunties may have painted a very different picture to them. They just want to make themselves feel better that they think they were trying to encourage others to do the right things, by their own pathetic standards. Fuck them. Shouting matches ensued during these 2 funerals. The uncles and aunties who had advised me to not sue those bastards, to take the short end of the stick, who rendered no help to me thereafter, but took sides now with whom I think are external parties, so called family whom I had barely any contact with over the years, but whom I was supposed to kow-tow to? No fucking way. But, I was branded as disrespectful by my family, and I was pretty much ex-communicated thereon. It was just as well, as I could see that they were not going to provide much help or protection that my father needed from all these external forces … we had to move on and leave the family aside so that I could protect him. I decided also that it was for the best. I had to work, make a living for both of us. Try to live a life. I couldn’t do so with them hanging in the shadows. I cannot trust them to do the right thing. I couldn’t trust them anymore, period. I do owe them a debt / gratitude, for putting me up for the period during my JC, and the 2 years living in CCK. But it wasn’t as if it didn’t come with its own set of issues, and I never felt I belonged. Always felt like I was intruding into my own family. I’m nonetheless thankful, and if there were to be a chance that I can repay that debt, I would. But this was a lot bigger than that. I had to walk away from them.
I remembered one of those shouting matches occurred during my grandad’s wake. I wanted to take my dad and leave but could not, as my car was blocked. Wasn’t so easy to book a ride then, and I was on crutches and it was difficult for me to go hail a ride. I called Marcus, who lived down the road, and begged him to come pick us up and send me home. I remembered the feeling of being totally lost to this world as everything seems to come crashing down. Harsh realities of life.
Thinking back a little, I do feel hard done by. Taking their advice to not ‘bring anymore bad name to the family …’ well, if one knows what type of businesses my family dipped their fingers in, then what family name are we talking about?! Or perhaps, it was exactly that, which prompted them to tell me not to blow matters up any further to bring unwanted attention. I don’t know, but I did as they asked, but did not receive any more help and protection that should have come along with it. And thinking back further, I kind of get it as well, we weren’t really part of the family anymore. Dad had spent many years estranged from them, while me, I was a novelty as a kid, but I knew how they viewed me due to my quiet nature growing up … that I was obedient and a good kid, but pretty dumb. I’d observed that they always favoured my other cousins, or maybe cos they were simply more present than I was. But while I didn’t make it to the best schools, I did somehow make it all the way through Singapore’s school system to graduate from NUS, and I was the only one amongst my 10 immediate cousins to do so. While a few of the others did graduate, they did overseas as they could not make the grade here. But, they weren’t the slightest bit proud of me. Nor did I ever receive any guidance through those formative years that would’ve been useful. What wisdom I received was ‘kids are meant to be seen, not to be heard …’ but that applied to me, not to the rest of my cousins, it seemed. The sort of career advice I’ve seen given to my friends whom I have made over the years, I wish I had them back then. I recalled asking my aunts that I would love to have my graduation photos with grandma, and was met with looks of puzzlement. I did not bring it up again, nor did I ever had my graduation photos taken.
During this time, there dad also had a health scare during the SARS period in 2003. There was a period he was coughing badly, brought him to the doctors who did an x-ray and admitted him to SGH because he found fluid in his lungs, and initially concluded it was cancer. Visiting was difficult during that time due to SARS restrictions, and the doctors who were tending to him were impossible to reach. Was kept in the dark about his condition and prognosis for more than a week before it finally came back that it was just a case of mild pneumonia and a slight puncture to the lungs had occurred as a result, which allowed the fluids in. Drained it and he was good as new.
Jalan Teck Whye years
Fast forward to 2008. Turned 35 and I could finally buy a HDB flat. Seems like a single man, despite paying taxes and contributing to society, is not deemed a human being in the eyes of the government that is eligible for public housing. Not unless you get married you are not human enough, not citizen enough. So much for being born bred and raised in this country.
Moved to a maisonette at Jalan Teck Whye, nearby Maysprings. Figured the stairs was good exercise for dad and that was the case for the few years we were there. Towards the end though, another health scare. This time, we were going out, and as we were going to exit the lift, dad just stood there and stared blankly into space, and fell on the floor. There were people around me, but they cleared and literally ran away when it happened. Called for an ambulance which took dad to NUH. They had to clear his lungs of fluids again, but this time it was from internal bleeding which was a possible long term side effect from the blood thinner that he was on. He was discharged from hospital after a week, but could see he did slow down a bit more compared to before. Coming to 2012, with the crappy neighbors we had (similar to Everitt Road type saga and these fucktards did get themselves mentioned as Everitt Road parte duex in the tabloids), and that he was slowing down, I decided that the time has come to move on, and get a place where he did not need to climb stairs anymore.
Renting in Punggol, starting to show significant signs of memory issues
Before moving to our current place at Jalan Bahagia, we were renting a 4-room flat in Punggol, a pretty short walk to Punggol MRT station. I’ve blogged about my landlord and their ‘chow kuan’ ways, so no need to repeat’em here. But it was this time, throughout the year of 2013, when I noticed that dad’s memory was starting to go. Despite numerous attempts to familiarize him with his surroundings to and from the coffee shop nearest to the block, he just could not correctly find his way to and fro. His days of going out on his own to get his own food was effectively over.
Jalan Bahagia, slow and steady degeneration
2013 to now … we’ve stayed at Jalan Bahagia since. Dad’s got a room at ground level. No more stairs. He doesn’t go out by himself anymore, cos he has slowed down a lot and also can’t find his way back anymore. I’d bring him out to the market most weekends, but as the years pass, he slows down more and more, and it gets harder and harder.
The last few years have seen him becoming so forgetful that he has started to not fully realise the date, time of the day, despite checking off his calendar every morning. I told his doctor at NNI about it during each visit, but he would say it’s just old age. However, his mental abilities have degenerated quite a bit more over 2020, and only at the most recent visit in March 2021 to NNI, did the doctor now finally says he has dementia. He recommended to start him on an Exelon patch that will help with the chemical imbalance. It’s very expensive and I get no subsidies. Dad’s condition has just gotten worse, and this new medication ain’t working, and if anything, his mental deficiencies have accelerated.
When Covid hit in March 2020, it also signaled the start of his mental spiral downwards exponentially. I guess somehow that I wasn’t able to take him out during that period had adverse effects. He slowed down so much more at home, and started falling down in the toilet, and lost total sense of day and time. Started sleeping a lot more while on the sofa during the day. Started being very wasteful with food, in part also due to his eyesight not doing well, he would start to do things at weird hours of the day, like waking up at 1am thinking its early morning, or wanting to go to bed for the night even though the sun is shining full on outside. Incontinence was starting to get the better of him, but he refuses to wear adult diapers. I had to clean up a lot more shit, literally, all over. I had to police him a little more, tried whatever I could to slow down the generation. I constantly reminded him of the time, made him use a walking stick in and around the house, coach him / nag him on some daily habits which he needed to get right without supervision, but was met with contempt and a bad attitude. It’s now come to a point that he dislikes my presence, looks at me blankly, wondering who this person is walking around in the house, having some semblance of who I am but also having an unexplained dislike for me. If I speak to him, the reply will most certainly have a tone of contempt in his voice. At the dining table, if I were to put food on his plate, he would swipe it off.
In May this year (2021), I woke up at 1am, thinking I heard some movement downstairs … and when I went down, I saw him in the toilet, he had fallen again, and this time there was a lot of blood and shit all over the toilet floor. He didn’t know how he’d cut himself. He is diabetic and couldn’t feel the pain. Didn’t want to / didn’t occur to him to open his mouth to ask for help (that’s just how he has been all these years). Cleaned him up and dressed the wounds, and it was then I decided I had to get a helper in. Wanted to explore the nursing home option, but I wasn’t poor enough in this government’s eyes to get subsidies, which meant the cost was exorbitant and exploitative.
I am very lucky to have gotten a helper who is really good, can take care of my dad, and also take care of the cooking and the household chores. My home is a small place in all honesty, and I am not demanding, and the main concern is just my dad. But dad’s downward spiral hasn’t abated. Good thing is he gets along with my helper and she really does seem to genuinely want to look after him. His attitude towards me and everything else though, has gotten worse. He has gotten so slow and unstable with his walking that since late last year, I had to use a wheelchair when taking him out. But even with a wheelchair, he is now refusing to take ‘walks’ and gets angry we try to get him to go out. He’s become a Republican, with a default answer of ‘No!’.
Why now, the Ode
So we’ve come to the final part of this ode … one can see how over the years, with our lives and the things that have happened, charting the way towards a slow generation into dementia, that has accelerated over the last year.
Why have I lost him? Or when did I realise that I have lost him? A month ago, helper told me she was worried cos he is unstable, especially in the shower, leaning against the glass and not washing properly, looking like he will fall anytime. This is a genuine concern, for if he falls on a wet floor, neither of us will find it easy to pick him up, not least he may hurt himself. I had broached the topic of him putting a chair in the shower and for him to sit down while showering, but he flatly refused. Helper said she had put a chair in there but he threw it out. I felt I had to step him and see if I can make him sit on a chair when showering. He not only refused, but kicked up a huge tantrum. Said he’d rather walk out and jump into the drain and die. Told me I can hit him and force him to sit, he doesn’t care. Now comes the kicker … I asked him, ‘In all these 20 over years taking care of you, I might have occasionally raised my voice at you, but have I ever raised my hands at you?’ … to which he replied ‘who says you have been taking care of me??’. I stopped and walked out of the toilet and said to our helper that there is nothing I can do, short of him eventually falling and hurting himself. We just have to monitor, slowly try to get him used to the idea. No success so far.
But, it’s the realization that he doesn’t remember me anymore, or barely, that smacked me in the face. It hurts. While my close friends tell me ‘it isn’t him anymore, and you must’ve take it to heart!’ … I know that, I agree, they are right and I get it. But it’s so much more than that … there’s a reason for such a long story … cos it’s one thing to finally realise that he is no longer really in there anymore, but this sentence also packed with it all the hurt and shit suffered through all those years ago and since, thrown into my face all at once. I wasn’t just hurt from not recognizing me for 20 years, not just that he ain’t really in there anymore, but that all these years have, in the face of it, were all for this, that he has not much more memory of who the hell I am and what we have been through. And it’s painful to see him degenerate in front of your eyes, and there is nothing i can do about it,
All these memories, I have had them, I have talked about them from time to time, but never like this, thrown into my face in such a way before.
Since then, in the past month, I’ve avoided eating at the same table with my dad as much as possible now, to not affect his mood, not to cause any further mood swings, not to have food thrown around or back at me. He may / may not remember who I am, off and on, but what is for certain is he no longer has recollection of the years gone by, and current modus operandi is ‘who is this guy? I don’t like him …’. Helper tells me his mood can sway from jovial to moody easily … hard to predict. He doesn’t speak to me … only if he suddenly wants something, like the other day he suddenly asked for a new alarm clock cos the current one doesn’t seem to be working. He doesn’t need an alarm clock, but the sight of it comforts him.
The other day, lunch time, he couldn’t remember how to address me, and asked my helper …’Is the man upstairs coming down …?’ I’ve become GOD … :-p
He will choose to kick a fuss or tantrum as and when he feels like it. The other day at the Geriatrics, he was told and taught how to walk and agreed to the doctor’s advise to allow helper and me to support him when he walks. Back home, he blatantly tells helper, ‘I don’t care what that man says, you do not help me …’ and gets angry and aggressive if you try to. It can escalate to him trying to knock his head against the wall to kill himself if you insist on his behaving himself … it has come to that … can’t tell when he will be good, when he will be bad. Jekyll and Hyde stuff.
I’m looking at him now, oblivious to most things happening around him, not remembering what we have gone through for the last 25 years. So long as he is in front of the TV and the sports channel is on, then he is comforted that things as normal.
Memories of all that has happened in the years gone by, are flooding and overwhelming me at the moment, and when I look at him, I can’t get all those thoughts out of my head. I’ll need a little time, to settle my thoughts and feelings, calm myself down again. Recollect myself and move on, and try to re-engage him in a different way. More kiddish perhaps, as he responds better to that sort of childish / childlike banter.
What I don’t need time to settle on, is that I am now certain, my ol’man is not in there anymore. There’s no nice way to say goodbye to someone, no matter the way in which he degenerates. But this is pretty much goodbye to him mentally … its now keeping him going physically. He was tough as nails before his stroke, and over the years he still proves to be that … he had only ever gotten sick once, and even though he has slowed down so much, you can tell his exoskeleton is strong.
They don’t make’em like him these days.
Living In And Around Happy Street 