in quiet trust

Dear J,

We’re 31, you’re still 17.

Remembering you while my girl is quietly sleeping.

I just said a prayer for your family, for your mum – I am certain she still thinks of you often, her young son.

A few of us from the class are parents now. It is only now, 13 years later, I think I finally begin to understand (not fully), the grief and pain that entered your parents’ lives this day, 13 years ago.

As parents, so much of your life is tied to your child’s well-being, even though on the surface it seems they are dependent on you. Your child is his/her own person – as a parent you don’t have absolute control, yet it is also untrue to say that you have absolutely no influence.

What a weighty responsibility, what costly love.

Dear J,

We’re 30, you’re still 17.

Today’s date is the 31 March, 2018. I’m 28 days late. Why so? Well, energy levels have dropped in tandem with increased demands at work. Priorities have shifted, just a little. To be frank, I guess I just haven’t had the will to sit down and intentionally take stock of all that’s been happening. Just flowing with the days, trying to keep up with my responsibilities in all areas, and using every spare moment to sleep.

Just as it was in 2015, I found that I couldn’t abandon this annual post. I just can’t. I’m under no illusion that this yearly “letter” has any impact on anyone. Whether it is brought to existence or ceases at 2017’s post, does not change anything. Yet, over the years, I’ve found it to be a meaningful checkpoint for myself.

There is something about remembering you J – your brief life and your sudden death – that strips any reflection of life of fluff and stubborn stains of ego. Year after year, I am compelled to see again that I scarce have control over my life, that I can never fully comprehend and give acceptable answers for why things happen. And I simply have to live with this inability, live life fully and with His help, humbly.

I hope this imperfect exercise, somehow, honours the memory of you.

…

Recently, I re-read Psalm 139 and was moved almost to tears.

For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

(Psalm 139:13-16)

Me being me, I found it hard to articulate my fears that the baby wouldn’t make it in my prayers to God. I shared honestly with A (almost everyday in fact..) and close friends. But whenever I prayed, all I could manage was a prayer for a healthy kiddo, and Thy will be done. It was weeks later, in extended stillness before God, that I realised my deeper fear was that my faith was not strong enough to withstand sorrows. I had preferred to be less specific in my prayer, than risk coming clean before God and find out later (should things go wrong) that I could not overcome my disappointment at Him.

How gracious the Lord is. Truly, He perceives my thoughts from afar (v2), and He knows fully before a word is on my tongue (v4). Despite my stubborn refusal to fully trust Him, He led me back to the familiar Psalm 139 as a balm for my struggling heart. He assured me that every single day of my life (and the little child’s too) was ordained by Him, before each day came to be. The Psalm speaks nothing of a long or short life, or of a life of comfort or struggle. It simply writes that not one day goes by without God knowing and allowing it. In the light of Good Friday and Easter, and the sure hope that Christ has reconciled us all to God, really what is there to fear about my earthly days?

This does not remove the possibility that my child might choose to take his own life, or choose a non-christian partner, or choose a life of rebellion to God. But I can’t control that. May God help me to be a faithful steward of what He has entrusted to me, and to be content with limits of control I have.

J, I wish you had known God and the assurance of Psalm 139. How different things might have been.

I was looking for a easy read on history for people who are easily bored with history (i.e. me). How fortunate that I stumbled on this e-book in NLB’s collection.

The author’s intent for the book was highlighted in the preface – he never intended for the book “to replace any textbooks of history that may serve a very different purpose in school”. Instead, he wanted his readers to “relax, and to follow the story without having to take notes or to memorise names and dates.”

I guess I was pretty much drawn in by that promise – minimal dates and names, just a good story.

Which turned out to be fascinating. A free around-the-world-trip during my SMRT rides.

I’m especially pleased to (somewhat) have a reference to (kinda) fall back on whenever history comes up. Much like how it is super helpful to know a regular 4-room HDB flat size is 90sqm and that the conversion between sqm and sqft is between 10 and 11.  These little bits of info and rough chronological outline go a long way when quick visualisation is needed.

Obviously, there is still so much to learn. This book, written by an Austrian (although Austria as we know it today, is so different from the past), naturally focused on European history. Can’t wait to dive into history of China, India, South America etc

Above all, I’m humbled that God is sovereign for all time and is faithful through the ages. How remarkably small we are, how magnificent is He.

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So, I’m reading Catherine Lim’s Roll out the Champagne, Singapore! at present. Formally, spelled out in the preface, it is “a commemorative book for the 50th anniversary of Singapore’s independence”. Basically, an SG50 thing lah. I‘ve been taking the book in with big gulps – loving how refreshingly local it is, amused at the candid not-so-PC sections, and just enjoying the precise (yet bursting with flavour) writings.

Then, I reached home from work. When I entered the lift, I realised that I’d stumbled on a conversation between neighbours (a gentleman in his 30s, and 2 boys aged 5 and 7 thereabouts).

Boy5: How Singaporean are you? How many percent?
Guy (amused): Haha does it matter to you?
Boy7: Hmm no..
Boy5: Yeah no..
Boy5 (persists): But how many percent Singaporean are you?
Guy: Well if it doesn’t matter.. haha
Boy7 (sounding helpful): If you are Malaysian, like you born in Malaysia but stay in Singapore, then you are 90%. If you born elsewhere but work in Singapore, then 20%..

Alas, the lift seemed to take too little time to reach Level 30 today. I couldn’t witness the conversation’s end, just like I was not there at the beginning. Still, I could not help smiling at the boys as I made my exit.

I’m guessing that the gentleman wasn’t trying to be difficult. Perhaps as adults, it is hard to place a number to it. Technically, single citizenship rules means the only correct answer is 100%. Yet, in our hearts, we know our divided loyalties, our gripes, our favourite places from childhood.. It isn’t so clear, isn’t it?

The boys showed me that it isn’t all or nothing. It is often a spectrum that we move along. It need not be so clinical. It need not be either pro-establishment or anti-establishment or apathy. There is sufficient space in the heart for all of this little island, the good and the bad.

I dare say my little heart has grown a little in affection for this, little red dot, where I belong.