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.
Urghhlings 