Subscribe to my blog feed
Cowboy Caleb recommends 
R.I.P, Uncle Black
Last Thursday, I received a call saying that my granduncle had been hospitalized. I wanted to fly back but issues at work saw it necessary for me to remain in China and work throughout the weekend.
Yesterday, I finally managed clear up all my work and booked a flight back to Singapore today at 5.45pm. The plan was to proceed to the hospital directly from airport to visit him.
Last night, I received a call saying that he had passed away. Cause of death - old age.
I don’t know his real name, everybody (from my father down to my youngest cousin) called him “Oh Chek” or Uncle Black since time immemorial. The story goes that we call him that because of his dark skin which looked like tanned leather.
I’m ashamed to say that I never knew much about this man who sacrificed his entire life for his family. When my grandfather died at an early age, widowing my grandmother with 5 kids to provide for - Uncle Black took the place of his elder brother to make sure there was food on the table.
He worked a variety of jobs from doing odd-jobs for the British administration, the Malayan navy and later on a Crocodile Farm. I remember as a child, my father brought me to court where Uncle Black was framed and accused of stealing crocodile eggs to sell (he was later cleared of all charges).
Uncle Black never got married - his priority was to earn enough money so everybody had enough to eat and had clothes on their back. My family owes a lot to this man.
After my cousin and grandmother passed away, he requested for instructions in the Catholic faith (which was difficult because he was hard of hearing) so that he could die a Catholic death when his time came and join the rest of his family in a Catholic themed afterlife. Unfortunately he didn’t managed to get baptized in time.
I used to slip him money and cigarrettes whenever I visited him but it was always hard for me to communicate with him because he only spoke the Teowchew dialect sparsed with broken English.
Have a good journey, Uncle Black. I’ll see you again on the last day when we shall all be reunited again.
7 Comments