The last farewell to my wife
Ancient peoples developed and ritualised mourning practices to express the shared grief of family and friends, and together show not fear or distaste for death, but respect for the dead one; and to give comfort to the living who will miss the deceased.
I recall the ritual mourning when my maternal grandmother died some 75 years ago.
For five nights the family would gather to sing her praises and wail and mourn at her departure, led by a practised professional mourner.
Such rituals are no longer observed. My family's sorrow is to be expressed in personal tributes to the matriarch of our family.
In October 2003 when she had her first stroke, we had a strong intimation of our mortality.
My wife and I have been together since 1947 for more than three quarters of our lives. My grief at her passing cannot be expressed in words. But today, when recounting our lives together, I would like to celebrate her life.
In our quiet moments, we would revisit our lives and times together. We had been most fortunate. At critical turning points in our lives, fortune favoured us.
As a young man with an interrupted education at Raffles College, and no steady job or profession, her parents did not look upon me as a desirable son-in-law.
But she had faith in me. We had committed ourselves to each other. I decided to leave for England in September 1946 to read law, leaving her to return to Raffles College to try to win one of the two Queen's Scholarships awarded yearly.
We knew that only one Singaporean would be awarded. I had the resources, and sailed for England, and hoped that she would join me after winning the Queen's Scholarship. If she did not win it, she would have to wait for me for three years.
In June the next year, 1947, she did win it. But the British colonial office could not get her a place in Cambridge.
Through Chief Clerk of Fitzwilliam, I discovered that my Censor at Fitzwilliam, W S Thatcher, was a good friend of the Mistress of Girton, Miss Butler.
He gave me a letter of introduction to the Mistress. She received me and I assured her that Choo would most likely take a "First", because she was the better student when we both were at Raffles College.
I had come up late by one term to Cambridge, yet passed my first year qualifying examination with a class 1. She studied Choo's academic record and decided to admit her in October that same year, 1947.
We have kept each other company ever since. We married privately in December 1947 at Stratford-upon-Avon. At Cambridge, we both put in our best efforts.
She took a first in two years in Law Tripos II. I took a double first, and a starred first for the finals, but in three years. We did not disappoint our tutors.
Our Cambridge Firsts gave us a good start in life. Returning to Singapore, we both were taken on as legal assistants in Laycock & Ong, a thriving law firm in Malacca Street.
Then we married officially a second time that September 1950 to please our parents and friends. She practised conveyancing and draftsmanship, I did litigation.
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