In memory of my earthly father...Keeping him in the Word

When my mother became wheelchair bound in 1999 my father was trying to cope with the setback and at the same time juggle with his commitments in church and it soon became clear that one thing had to give way and he chose the route of stepping down from all his commitments.

Initially he would spend his time reading the word in his room and accompanying my mother around in her wheelchair but soon I noticed that he began to slacken in his spiritual nourishment and not long after he started to experience lapses in memory. I recalled a comment from one of their friends that dad was mom's limbs while mom became his memory bank and the twain complemented each other very well. He would accompany her wherever she wanted to go in her wheelchair while she would remind him of his schedules and even recall incidents for him.

Events took a turn for the worse three years later in 2002 when mom became bed-ridden after a series of severe multiple strokes in her sleep. She lost her voice, could not eat and had to be fed intravenously and she could no longer sit up. Her condition slipped further after yet another series of stokes which would render her literally in a vegetating state. All the muscles on her face became numb and the only way we could see her eyes open was to pull her cheek muscles to reveal her eyeballs.

And mom's condition took a further toll on dad. Already not being able to remember many things and not being able to chat with mom made it even worse for him and in his delicate mental state, he began to drift further and further away from us. I recall five years ago Alice and I decided to set aside time every Saturday to bring him out for dinner with Adrian and Adeline whenever possible and initially he would look forward to the outing but three years ago, these dinners became more difficult for all. He became more recluse and slipped into non-communication mode and towards the end, he would not even recognize where he was (in our home) that he was having dinner. One such occasion he wandered into our front garden thinking it was the toilet and I had to quickly direct him to the correct place for his nature call.

So we decided to have communion with him after dinner before we sent him home. His attention span was even shorter than a young child and he would complain that he wanted to go home immediately after dinner. Each week as we partook of the elements of communion, we would believe in his healing but our faith was just not there as we could not see the results; the physical symptoms were just too overwhelming.

Next we tried to immerse him in the word. We reckoned that since he probably could not remember how to read, he could still hear the bible read for him in his language and so I visited the Singapore Bible Society and bought the whole New Testament CD series in Cantonese and would instruct the maid to place him one CD per day with the volume turned up so that he could hear. And I remembered even playing about five chapters while he was in the car to and from my home on Saturdays. I do not know what impact it had on him as we could not tell but I believed that it did help.

Indeed I want to praise Abba Daddy for sending my parents two maids from Indonesia (over a period of seven years) who were very patient with them and who took all the challenges in their stride. They would faithfully accompany dad every day in the bus from my brother's condominium in West Coast Road (near Clementi Stadium) to St Luke's Community Hospital in Bukit Batok and back in all weather. So set was his daily schedule because of his dimentia challenges that the doctors and physiotherapists realized that my mom should not be moved out of St Luke's and extended her stay to a 'permanent resident' status which I was told is a rarity. The normal practice is to dscharge the patient after a three-month stay and to send him/ her home to recuperate as the Community Hospital could not accommodate long-term stay but by Abba Daddy's grace, mom stayed in St Luke's for about five years without interruption.

Abba Daddy knew that we simply could not cope if mom had to rest at home - it would have disrupted our lives and we would not be able to cope mentally and emotionally.