Annual Check-up

We all keep track of the months that are significant to us don't we? Birthdays, anniversaries, school holidays and therefore family vacations. These days, my mental calendar also includes my encounter with lymphoma. February was the month I started feeling lumps on my neck, May was the month I was diagnosed and started on chemo, November was the month chemo finally ended and January was the month I tested to see if I was in remission.  A year has flow by and today I was back at the oncology clinic to find out the results of the annual tests that the doctor ran on me.

My wife asked me if I was worried. I did think about it, but I hadn't lost sleep over it. Not because I felt invincible, far from it - cancer reminds us that there are no guarantees in life. The Epistle of James puts it aptly:

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  ~ James 4: 13- 15

Living with the unknown, I've learnt to just trust that God will be with me whatever the outcomes. If I could out-think cancer, then I wouldn't have had the condition in the first place, so it is really no point thinking too much about it.


There were quite a few patients at the clinic today - young and old. Every time I am at the clinic, I tell myself that there just isn't a face to cancer. It can happen to anyone at any stage of life - nobody is singled out for cancer. There was a teenage boy there with his mother. He lost his hair due to the effects of chemo but was otherwise in good spirit. His mother was calm and collected. How courageous, the both of them. I pray for their victory over cancer. God is able.

There are those who hold strong views against chemo - that it does far more harm than the cancer itself and leaves the patient far to weak to battle the disease. I agree that chemo can't always guarantee success, and different people react to it differently. It is true that it often has significant side effects. But with the improvement in research, the drugs are getting better and they give patients a good chance of survival. Nobody should ever need to be a "fan" of chemo, but we should not look at it as if it were a dirty bomb that completely destroys whatever is left of a patient. We need to try putting our fears aside and be open to advice from a responsible oncologist. Although the road can be bumpy, there are good outcomes.

When it finally came to my turn to see the doctor, he was kind enough to let me know the results immediately, at the reception area as we were walking to his office. All clear. When he flipped through the scans he said that there wasn't anything to see because there really isn't anything there. One year in full remission. I really thank God for the good outcome. Truly, we live by the grace of God.

Thanks for keeping me in your prayers.

The Law

Adam & Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder,
 Galleria Uffizi, Milan

I have often wondered why the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, is referred to as the Law. I associate law with a list of definitive No's and some You-May's. The Ten Commandments would be something that fits the bill - You shall and Thou shall not. And there are many other part of the Torah that sounds like that, including the dietary rules of the Jewish people, their festivals and types of sacrifices, and rules on morality. But a large proportion of the Torah isn't like that at all. Instead they are stories of man and their relationship with God, often broken ones.

I have come to understand that the law refers to what is indisputably the truth, like the laws of nature - plants and animals pro-create, fishes swim in the rivers and the sea, the whole universe follows some rules that God came up with, divinely orchestrated. God spoke those laws at the beginning of creation and every piece of DNA works beautifully by design, nothing ever goes out of control. Every outcome was good and perfect. There was never a need of any laws against anything bad because bad just didn't existed.

But then we took a wrong turn. Instead of listening to the universal law that God had set in creation, we decided to listen to a serpent who suggested to us that the law that God set was to limit our potential. We have this tendency to look to others to understand what the truth is don't we? Even a slithering snake. I remember having a debate with my son about what is a reasonable time to spend on mobile devices and his point of reference was his school friends who don't have such restrictions. This was before the likes of Bill Gates came out to tell everyone that they restrict their kids' use of technology, so I was at a slight disadvantage. Ever since we took that wrong turn in human history, laws have been introduced to keep us from fast-track self-destruction.

But God didn't resort to drawing up a rule book that reads like the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. His reforms did not look like convoluted tax laws that nobody understands and so many have the urge to hide from. Instead, he used the stories of fallen human to help us understand the law that we have lost sight of - that God is the Creator and He remains sovereign, that He still sees great value in people; that like any good father, He picks us up from the mud and will give His own flesh to redeem ours. This is the law, that's just how it is.

In the course of history, there has been countless attempts to remove this truth from the face of the earth. Attempts to destroy the people who bear witness to those stories in the Torah, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple more than once, discrediting the Bible as the half-truth from God and our culture that slanders the truth like the serpent. But the truth stands the test of time, the law prevails because it is everlasting.


21 Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
    Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
    and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
    and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23 He brings princes to naught
    and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
24 No sooner are they planted,
    no sooner are they sown,
    no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
    and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.
25 “To whom will you compare me?
    Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
    Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
    and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
    not one of them is missing.

Isaiah 40 : 21-26 (NIV)

School Days

 The dynamics of school days have changed. Mei Mei started Primary 1 this year and goes to the same school as her brother. I used to walk my son to school and later drop Mei Mei at the kindie on my way into work. All in all it would take about 1 1/2 hours between getting them up and ready and giving Mei Mei a hug before she goes into her classroom. School day mornings were intense, to say the least! But it's great to spend that one-to-one time with them on the way to school. They have questions sometimes or something funny to say.  If I am lucky, they may even tell me what happened at school the day before. 

This year, it takes about 50 minutes from the time they wake up to me getting home after dropping them in school. Both of them are far more independent in getting themselves ready, partly because they pace each other in every task. Mei Mei has more to do - she has more pieces to her school uniform and I have to help tie her hair into a ponytail. They don't like to eat anything that early in the morning so I give them a glass of milk instead. While they brush their teeth, I get their water-bottles and recess food ready. It is a buzz of activities, at about twice the speed this year.

Walking to school is different too. I can't hold both their hands and walk three in a row because we would slow down pedestrian traffic in both directions. Also I am often carrying something on one or both hands. I didn't want to hold one of the kids' hands and not the other. The only solution was for them to hold each other's hand while I walk in front of them to keep a look out for cars when they cross a road. But that means less opportunities for me to talk to them. Something has to give when you are born with only 2 hands. 

When we get to school, I give each of them a hug and kiss. I have to ask them to wait in case they run off before I am done. It felt a bit rushed in the last two weeks. When they head off to their respective class queues at the assemble area, they will say bye to each other. It's so cute to watch. And then they will both turn back a couple of times to wave to me. It is one of the most heartwarming part of my day. It is like witnessing fireworks shoot up gracefully into the sky before splitting into two dazzling bursts.

Star Wars - The Last Jedi

We were in Italy when Star Wars The Last Jedi was released. So one of the first things that we did when we got back to Singapore was to watch the movie. My eldest son watched it with his schoolmates, and then watched it a second time with the rest of us. A good movie is definitely worth a second watching. I wouldn't say that I am a die-hard Star Wars fan - to give you a sense, if the LOTR trilogy is rated 10 Wows, then Star Wars would be 8 Wows for me. At the start of the movie, I had a moment of confusion where I had to remind myself that this wasn't one of the prequels but a sequel.

Like any successful movie franchise, the movie has the key elements. First, no matter how bad things are, good will always triumph over evil. For those who have yet to watch it, it is not even a spoiler to say that Resistance overcame the Dark side is it? Despite living in a rather cynical world, the feel good factor is essential in a box-office hit. What would be the point of watching a dozen of Star Wars movies if it eventually ends with Kylo Ren running the universe? Second, good people die in the process. They give up their own lives for a greater cause. In every episode of Star Wars you are waiting to see which hero doesn't come out alive. Yoda would have quipped "Trademark to this franchise it is". 

Thirdly, the English accent makes for a good villian, which is why Andy Serkis' Supreme Leader Snoke was way more sinister than Darth Sidious. He slices his apprentice and captor with his words before he telephatically strangles them. Finally it goes without saying - fantastic props and special effects laid over dramatic natural landscape such as Skellig Michael. Now, admittedly there are some exceptions to this fourth element - in Die Hard, Bruce Willis was stuck in a office building, an airport, and then in Manhattan (I stopped watching after #3). Okay, I am giving away too much about my taste in movies. 

The kids were talking about the movie throughout the dim sum lunch. I give it 9 Wows!

Announcing! Announcing!

I am still stuck in 2017. After a holiday, I will spend the next week or two putting together a photobook. And yesterday, I had just arrived in Rome from Florence. There were close to one thousand more photos to get through. How do I summarise everything we've seen in Italy in 100 pages or less? How do I do justice to a wonderful sculpture? How do I decide from which angle the sculpture should be featured in the photobook? Always a dilemma, always leaves me an anguish. With that and Christmas, the last 10 days of December just flew by.

There was nothing big planned to usher in the new year. I only booked dinner at Casa Verde, Botanic Gardens the night before, after last minute attempts to make reservations in several restaurants failed. Although we just got back from Italy, I didn't think the kids would have any objections to pizza and pasta. Besides they've had Peking Duck three times since we got back from the holiday. The restaurant was cosy and cooling sitting outdoors on a rainy evening. It was good to have a quiet moment to enjoy the family in the last few hours of the year.

When we got home, I tried to get the younger kids to clean up and get to bed early. They have been sleeping late and waking up late since they got back from Italy. I was concerned that they would struggle to wake up when school starts on Tuesday.  But they had other plans - they wanted to be awake for the New Year. So after some trying, I relented and went back to my photobook to advance from Rome Day 1 to Rome Day 2 - Vatican City, Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. This required my full concentration.

As I was getting into full swing, my wife came into the room and said that she was feeling sad that the year is over. She was sentimental about the baby in the family growing up too quickly and tears were starting to roll down her her face. Before I knew it, she was bawling like a baby. How were we going to ask Mei Mei to hold back her tears if she feels anxious on the first day? But my wife has been holding it in for the last two days and needed to let it out. Mei Mei offered her a handkerchief and gave her a hug. In the meantime, my second son was running in and out of the room mimicking a PA system announcement "Announcing! Announcing! ... [X] minutes left to 2017!" He switched on the radio clock to listen to the year-end countdown. And whether we were ready or not, 2018 arrived. The 2 kids ran to the window to look out for the fireworks which they could hear from a distance. 

This year, a few changes are charging towards us. The baby of the family starts formal school.  On the same day, our eldest son will be going for an overseas mission trip with the church youth group. In a couple of months time, he will be off to National Service and making big decisions about his future. "Announcing! Announcing! ... things are changing real fast." When the changes come, they come too quickly and suddenly, even when we have been preparing ourselves for years. It is like waiting in anticipation for a passing train - you hear it coming in excitement, you see it roar pass you, and then suddenly you find yourself waiving to it as it speeds into the horizon. 

The lesson is not to miss any moment. Ready or not, the 2017 chapter has ended and we have quickly flipped to the next page, to a new chapter. May the good and gracious Lord bless all of our children's coming and going, giving them wisdom, peace and joy in whatever they do.

Happy 2018!