We would have two dishes: Pork Pau and chicken Nor Mai Kai. They serve it now in the airport lounge here in Singapore. And every week I would partake of it.
This week, coinciding with the ghost month (the Chinese version of celebrating the dead), I thought of him. I just chatted about him and his life with my parents last week. I thought of him then too.
He didn't have the easiest life but he raised his family best he could and that extended to looking after me (with food mainly - from local breakfasts to nourishing exotic foods like ginseng and pig's brains which he would stew lovingly and walk it over in the evenings - mainly for me much to the chagrin of my siblings 😀).
The years were not kind to him. He developed a form of senile dementia and in his case sadly, he could remember the more unpleasant moments of his life and then started imagining shenanigans in the present.
He lived till a hundred and independently so (by himself at times). He ate moderately (the photo of my breakfast this morning is twice what we would have) and he lived moderately too. A lifetime of frugality ensured that. And more impressively, he remained a man of fierce integrity.
Simple as his life has been, his experiences are worth retelling and I shall - in some way or form.
For the moment, I'd just remember him fondly and lovingly during this ghost month.
