Tag: grief

Let the Rest Do the Rest

A break in the emotional cloud that had enveloped my whole being came later that night when my son reached out from Scotland. I had just held the first New Year’s Eve party without my mother who passed away earlier that month. He sent a message that, despite its utter simplicity, resonated deeply with the fragile state of my soul and the turbulent mood of the world. He wished me a “good 2026.” The phrasing struck me with startling perspicuity; it felt appropriate, realistic, and profoundly correct in a way that conventional well-wishes never could. It wasn’t a superficial ‘happy new year,’ which felt laughably optimistic given the circumstances. It wasn’t an overly ambitious ‘prosperous one,’ suggesting material gains while the emotional ledger was deep in the red. Nor was it burdened with the hollow, inevitable broken promises of new year resolutions.

Just good.

Good, I realised with a sudden gratitude, was enough. Good, in fact, was perhaps the highest aspiration one could genuinely hold. Good was, arguably, even hard to achieve, given the escalating, visible fractures in the once-solid political bedrock of Europe and the strained, essential unity of NATO. The global landscape was a cauldron of relentless turmoil, driven primarily by the increasingly destabilising Trumpian edicts of “might is right”—a cold, brutish doctrine in which the concept of a traditional ally or perceived or manufactured foe is rendered utterly meaningless, of no consequence whatsoever to the wannabe dictator’s sweeping, aggressive land-grab hallucinations.

In this shifting, cynical environment, the West’s much-vaunted “rules-based order” had become an irrelevance, a casualty of its own hypocrisy. Its effective death occurred the moment the supposedly compliant vassal states—the smaller nations reliant on the framework—realised with chilling clarity that their own complicity in using this convenient slogan was backfiring spectacularly on them. The sickening, undeniable realisation dawned that it wouldn’t be just the traditional third-world countries subjected to modern-day colonisation or resource exploitation; they, the so-called loyal allies, too, would be strategically targeted, destabilised, or dismantled if they possessed any resource or geographical advantage of value that the declining hegemon desired. The rules, it turned out, only applied to those without the capacity to break them.

Amidst this gloomy contemplation of personal loss and international decay, the accompanying photograph he sent served as a calm, visceral anchor. It captured him raising his glass to me—a silent, digital toast—in front of the perfectly cooked plate of steak he had just prepared. The image, warm with domestic light and the simple effort of a son caring for his father, improved my mood instantly. It offered a simple, grounding counterpoint, a tangible reminder of caring and love that stood in defiant opposition to the cold, abstract anxieties of political collapse and the heavy, pervasive shroud of recent loss. The personal, I recognised, was a necessary outpost against the gathering, gloomy threats of the political world.

“Three minutes each side, right, and rest it for three minutes?” I asked, revealing the method I would have cooked the steak.

“One minute 20 secs, each side on hot pan, then under foil and cloth to rest,” he replied.

“Rest about eight to ten minutes,” he added.

“Let the rest do the rest,” he suggested.

I looked at his photograph again. His face reflected a deep calmness that soothed me. His countenance was a study in profound peace, a mirror of serenity that belied their recent sorrow. A calm reflection of enviable contentment radiated from him, an almost transcendent acceptance of the circular world, death follows life and then, rebirth. This tranquility was his silent, yet powerful, message to his father: a solemn assurance that the current of life would continue, and with it, a reminder for his father to rest his troubled mind and weary body.

Let the rest do the rest.

The arrival of 2026 was marked not by jubilant expectation, but by a quiet, profound acknowledgement that “good enough” would have to suffice, a concession made in the wake of a loss that had reshaped my new reality. My mother’s demise, occurring less than a month before the arbitrary turning of the calendar page, had cast a long, tender shadow over the new year.

The preceding weeks had already been a brutal initiation into a world without her physical presence, culminating in the first Christmas and the first New Year’s Eve—celebrations historically anchored by her warmth and energy—that now felt strangely hollowed out. Yet, these were only the beginning. The year ahead would stretch out, a series of painful yet necessary “firsts” waiting to be encountered, each a fresh reminder of her absence: the first Chinese New Year gathering, where her gentle smiles and laughter and delight to clink wine glasses would be sorely missed; the first Easter, stripped of the joy she brought to family gatherings; the first birthday celebrations, where her presence and unwavering attention would be a poignant gap; and, most heartbreakingly, the first Mother’s Day, now a commemoration of a life that was.

She was more than just a family member; she was the indisputable matriarch, the strong, unwavering pillar upon which generations had leaned. Her loss was not just personal grief, but the shattering of a lineage milestone—she was the first and, to this point, the only centenarian in our family, and now, a memory to a life lived fully, rich with experience, wisdom, and boundless love. Stepping into 2026 meant stepping into the immense space she had left behind, navigating the quiet echoes of her life could bring more bouts of emotional outpouring.

The outward expression of loss, the public mantle of mourning and death, was but the surface layer. Yet, beneath this visible grief, a deeper truth was struggling to be revealed. Like the technique of pentimento—where earlier images or brushstrokes, long painted over, begin to show through the succeeding layer of paint—so too did the faint, true picture of her great personal stories begin to emerge. The layer of recent sorrow was thin enough to allow the essential, underlying canvas to be seen: a life that was richly and deliberately painted with the indelible colours of motherly love and profound personal sacrifice. This was the enduring masterpiece, the genuine portrait of a mother’s love that time and death could not diminish. It was the legacy that persisted beyond the grave, offering comfort to the living and a final, peaceful farewell.

The sense of her enduring presence was recently heightened by a visit, a few nights ago, during the last half hour of her final day in this realm—the 49th day of her passing. Almost asleep, a sudden, unmistakable whiff of fragrance jolted me from my stupor – that of her favourite white flowers from our childhood home in Penang. This fragrance, similar to the orange jasmine here in Adelaide, typically blooms in spring or early summer, and a check the following morning confirmed the neighbour’s plants were not in bloom. Furthermore, the scent was definitively internal, as the Mrs insists on tightly shut windows to eliminate dust.

Let the rest do the rest. This simple phrase now carries a profound message, suggesting a necessary surrender to the natural process of grieving and healing.

Ahma, may you rest in eternal peace.

Goodbye is the Hardest Word

Ahma lived to 102. I had written many stories about her, a sixty-five minute read actually. But, I was asked to be brief, to distill a century into a mere five minutes. So, Ahma, forgive me for being brief.

Ahma’s name is Xu Mei Lan anglicised as Chee Moay Lan. Each character is a mirror reflecting her soul. Xu means slowly and gently, like the flow of a stream. Mei is the plum flower and Lan is grace and elegance. Anyone who knew her will know how perfectly her name described her life.
She did not take our father’s surname, out of filial piety, to her own family—a Confucian tradition she carried with quiet dignity. To many, she was Mrs Chee. To us, she was simply Ahma.

She married Ahpa at seventeen, in 1940. She was beautiful—porcelain skin, swan-like poise—always elegant in her cheongsam, even though her roots were humble. She was not born in Shanghai or Ningbo, as many assumed, but on a rubber plantation in Bagan Datoh, where her father worked as a dhobi man. Refinement, for Ahma, was not cultivated. It was innate.


She survived war, poverty, displacement, and loss. These shaped her lifelong frugality. I remember following her to the wet market as a child, where she would haggle fiercely over the smallest denomination—a single cent. Vendors would visibly brace themselves when they saw her coming. With eight children, one apple was sliced into eight equal pieces—and if one slice was thicker, a sliver would be cut off to restore fairness.

Yet this same woman sent all her children overseas for education—sometimes against her husband’s wishes. In the years after World War II, this was extraordinary. She believed education was the only way out of poverty, and she made it happen for her children.

Ahma had little formal schooling—only eight months in Malaya and two years in Ningbo—but she possessed a formidable mind. Her memory was astonishing. She remembered birthdays, anniversaries, grocery prices, historical events such as dates when her children first left home and when they returned, and the weather. Long before weather apps, she was our weather girl. Her memory was precise, immutable—like a blockchain ledger that never lost a record.

Ahma was the eldest child in her family. She had hoped to be a teacher. At the time, anyone with five years of education could become a teacher; she was halfway to reaching her ambition. But, all hopes of that died with Ngagung, her dad. In February 1936, Ngagung contracted Typhoid and passed away. In those days, when the sole provider of a family dies, usually hope dies too for those left behind. She was only thirteen years old.

She was meticulous, a perfectionist, right to the end. Earlier this year, I watched her cut a piece of cold toast into six perfect squares, carefully brushing crumbs aside before taking a bite. Her mantra was balance: not too hot, not too cold, not too fast, and certainly, never wasteful.
“Ok, ma, let’s go. Slowly and carefully,” I said to her as she rearranged the crumbs on her plate, she replied simply, “I can only be slow.” Perhaps that slowness was her secret to living to a hundred and two—with hardly any medication at all.

She endured unimaginable, silent grief. In 1948, she suffered a miscarriage at six months. In 1949, she miscarried twice more and lost a newborn son who survived just long enough to offer his parents a smile. In her mind, they were always part of the family. She remembered them on every anniversary, faithfully, quietly.

Her greatest joy in life was her eight children, seventeen grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren. Any gathering brought her immense happiness. She loved parties and the clinking of wine glasses, which was why we regularly took her to her favourite restaurant, The Empress, almost every weekend. At 99, she outlasted many of us at a New Year’s Eve celebration and did not want to leave well after midnight.

Ahpa and Ahma were married for sixty seven years until his death in 2007. He affectionately called her his “lor tha bo,” his “old woman,” with a chuckle. Surprisingly, theirs was not a match-made alliance. She chose Ahpa—a lanky, handsome man with a dry-cleaning shop two doors down from her uncle’s dhobi shop.The other candidate was from Fujian, a rice farmer with ten acres of land. Asked why she picked Ahpa, she replied,  “I saw myself slaving away in the rice field, rain or shine. Hard life.”
“The other was tall and handsome. Fair-skinned. Ambitious. Skilled in a good trade.”

She avoided the Japanese attack on China just before WW2 but was caught in the terror when they bombed Penang. My generation, which has never experienced war firsthand, is ignorant of the sheer tenacity required to survive years of hunger and hardship. Ahpa survived twelve brutal days in a Japanese jail; Ma endured those days alone, with great anxiety, fear and vulnerability yet, with mental resilience and maintained a low profile and composure in public.

The habits of survival die hard. Right up until her final days before moving into the nursing home, Ahma would enthusiastically “clean” her dinner plate at the dining table. Due to the length of time she needed to consume a meal, the minutest crumbs and dried-up sauce would often coat her plate. Every speck would be lifted by a small amount of water or soup, before being scooped up gently with a spoon. Every drop was consumed purposefully. She was fundamentally incapable of being wasteful—a thriftiness none of us truly understood, because none of us had lived through the war that forged it.

She lasted almost seven months in the nursing home, bed-bound with no hope of a miraculous recovery. Her question to me, posed in her native Ningbo dialect, “Yu so beh fa?” – is there any other option? – revealed a poignant awareness, a flicker of understanding regarding her circumstances, despite the severe dementia she was suffering from. In that question was awareness, acceptance, and grace. I told her she was loved, that she was cared for, that her children loved her very much. I held her hand—the same hand that had fed us, clothed us, protected us—and I whispered, “Goodnight, Ahma.” I could not bring myself to say goodbye on my last visit just before my trip to Europe.

While wandering along the side streets of La Rambla in Barcelona, I paused to read the words on my phone. I shouted to my sister who was meters in front, “Sufong, Ahma just passed away!”

Death is not the end; it is a quiet transition into another world – like sunset giving way to night. Some of us hold the deep conviction that we will be reunited with Ahma and Ahpa one day. There is dignity, serenity and love, not sadness or despair.

Ahma did not seek greatness, yet she embodied it. She did not lead nations or make scientific discoveries, but she raised generations through sheer sacrifice, unwavering fairness, incredible resilience, and unconditional love. To me, she was the greatest mother anyone could have.
And though her life here has ended, the legacy she bestowed upon us will never be diminished.

Gluck’s The Dance of the Blessed Spirits, the flute piece which was played earlier, was about peace, purity and release. Serenity, actually. It evokes a mother’s gentleness – care, tenderness, and watchfulness.

Later, you will hear Strauss’s Im Abendrot. As the poet writes, after a long journey, one may finally rest and ask, not in fear but in peace, “Is this perhaps death?” I think it aligns with my closing thought that death is a transition, not an end.

Strauss asks, “Is this death?”

Gluck answers, “This is peace.”

Ahma, as you go beyond mountains and rivers, may you rest in peace.

Alak ho chong ai nong.