Of Family Feuds and Funerals

 Of Family Feuds and Funerals. 

Sometimes, an opportunity comes our way to make things right. To show grace, to forgive, and to heal. To put aside ideas of right or wrong, good or bad, and win or lose. To rebuild, repair, and restore. LWL’s passing was such an opportunity. Sadly, it’s not being recognised for what it is… a chance to end a family feud, restore relations, and reunite the nation. 

I’ve been reading comments online of folks arguing for LHL, and against LHY, and vice versa, and I can’t help thinking that it’s not particularly useful to polarise people and to imagine the best or the worst of them. All of life is about straddling that space between contradictions. We are all both good, and bad. How do we live with ourselves amidst these tensions? And how do we live with others, knowing full well that they, like us, are perfectly imperfect? Only with plenty of grace. 

In an ideal world, LHY would have returned for his sister’s funeral despite valid charges against him and whatever the consequences might be. Ideally, the house would be demolished, because, after all, it’s just a stone edifice, filled with a family’s memories, and now the cornerstone of an ongoing feud that has torn the family apart. It’s the cause of disunity, not just for the family, but for the nation. Division already exists beneath our nation’s superficial veneer, but surely a family feud revisited during a funeral shouldn’t add to fragile fault lines being further broadened. Unfortunately, it is adding to disunity. 

What’s the truth, who’s right, who should win? It sounds like a petty childhood squabble that will have no end unless the precious toy is removed. Take the house away, demolish it, and let’s carry on. It’s not really a loss, neither a hollow victory for anyone. It’s really just sanity prevailing. No need to feed egos, enable victimhood, and encourage division. Close the chapter, remove the spotlight, and retire gracefully from the arena of family feuds. It’s the best thing for the nation. If either party says they love Singapore, then they should stop tarnishing their family’s good name, and all of ours, and let the past go. 

Thanks for reading, 

Pav

AFP file photo of the house.

Obituary for a Frangipanni Tree

Obituary for a Frangipanni Tree (6th Oct 2022)

Woke up this morning and found a frangipanni had fallen across the pond. It was the last of 5 frangipannis planted around the pond in 2011, when the house was first built. I am sad to see it dead though I feel I did neglect it while it was alive. Wrote a little something while munching my toast. Fare thee well, frangipanni tree.

Obituary for a frangipanni tree:

Planted by the pond your roots protested

An excess of water that lingered in the soil.

You watched palms and ferns flourish while other frangipannis died, 

Did you know you were the last to survive? 

Today, you broke, unsupported by brittle branches that carried the dry rot stemming from dead roots, 

Spreading like a cancer through your skeletal frame. 

Yours was a life unheralded, a tree amongst other plants, a part of the backdrop of a green screen.

One of several, your uniqueness finally being your solitary survival over a decade while other frangipannis fell early.

Frangipannis do not like water, we knew that, hoping that somehow you’d survive. 

And you did, until today. 

And I am shocked that I cannot remember the colour of your flowers. There have been none for a long time now. 

And I am sad that you were dying all this time, and I did not know.

Thanks for reading,

Pav