Letter to My Father , livre ebook

Marshall Cavendish International - Felix Cheong

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110 pages

English

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What would you tell your father if you wrote him a letter? Perhaps what you have always wanted to say, but never could. Perhaps things you would like to thank him for, but never had the chance to. Or perhaps sort out disagreements you wished had been resolved more amicably. Heartfelt and moving and full of vignettes about their growing up years, these letters by our contributors show us the pivotal role the father figure plays in their children's lives. Contributors include: Margaret Thomas, Sadie-Jane Alexis Nunis, Christina The, Louis Tang, Alvin Tan, David Kwee, Hoh Chung Shih, Wong Ting Hway, Chee Soo Lian, Natalie Ng, Charmaine Leung, Crispin Rodrigues, Jacintha Abisheganaden, Kelvin Tan, Usha Pillai, Andrew Koh, Patrick Sagaram, Loh Guan Liang, Sarah Voon, Koh Jee Leong

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Publié par	Marshall Cavendish International
Date de parution	20 mai 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789814974363
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0550€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Text individual contributors as credited in each work
2021 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
Published in 2021 by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: (65) 6213 9300 E-mail: genref@sg.marshallcavendish.com Website: www.marshallcavendish.com
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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Cheong, Felix, editor.
Title: Letter to my father : words of love and perspectives on growing up from sons and daughters / edited by Felix Cheong.
Description: Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2021
Identifiers: OCN 1242598853 | e-ISBN: 978 981 4974 36 3
Subjects: LCSH: Children-Correspondence. | Fathers. | Father and child.
Classification: DDC 306.8742-dc23
Printed in Singapore
Cover design by Adithi Khandadai
This book is dedicated to all parents, in the hope that these shared experiences will inspire and shape your own parenting journey.
Contents
Foreword
F ELIX C HEONG
I Wonder What You Would Say
M ARGARET T HOMAS
My Love Letter to My DD
S ADIE -J ANE A LEXIS N UNIS
A Letter to My Father
C HRISTINA T H
My Father, Inspiration of My Life
L OUIS T ONG
Berat Mulut : You will Always be a Part of Me
A LVIN T AN
Running the Good Race 64
D AVID K WEE
Always The God-like Superman
H OH C HUNG S HIH
Birds Shall be Birds
W ONG T ING H WAY
Life - As My Father Showed Me
C HEE S OO L IAN
IIX (Aleph Tav)
N ATALIE N G
My Unfinished Conversation with Papa
C HARMAINE L EUNG
An Education from My Father
C RISPIN R ODRIGUES
Flamenco and Leopard Print: Memories of Childhood
J ACINTHA A BISHEGANADEN
My Father, My Heart
K ELVIN T AN
My Father - A Piece of Heaven
U SHA P ILLAI
Was I Wrong to Let You Go?
A NDREW K OH
To Be a Man
P ATRICK S AGARAM
Man in the Mirror
L OH G UAN L IANG
Love at Arm s Length
S ARAH V OON
The Reply
K OH J EE L EONG
Foreword
Felix Cheong
For most of us, having a frank chat with your father seems to be one of the hardest - if not the hardest - things to do, right up there with getting an audience with the Prime Minister. Unlike mothers, regarded as more nurturing (and thus closer to the heart), fathers are distant, almost like a satellite revolving on its own centrifugal force around the family.
You are, of course, connected to him by love, but it is perhaps best experienced at arm s length.
After all, the father figure - at least in a traditional Asian family - is the provider, the protector and the policeman. Add the archetypal image of a man as being strong and silent, and it is little wonder communication channels with our father are not always clear.
In this companion anthology to Letter to My Mother , 20 contributors have been invited to reopen communication lines with their father. For some of them, their letter is an expression of long-overdue gratitude for his years of upbringing. For others, their letter seeks solace in absence, in what they have missed about their late father. And for a handful, their letter is a coming-to-terms with an absent father, one whose leaving had left them bereft and undone.
I, too, had had my fair share of stop-and-start conversations with my father. It was only in the last few years of his life that we took to talking more often. Even then, we had our differences and sometimes, it got the better of us (it did not help that I take after him in being quick-tempered). I always thought there was time enough to make peace and make it up to him.
Even when Dad was hospitalised for pneumonia in December 2019, I clung onto the hope there was tomorrow, and a daisy-chain of tomorrows, for all the things I wanted to tell him.
No - too little, too late. Just three hours after I visited him briefly at Changi General Hospital, he left. The last thing he had whispered to me (pneumonia had all but robbed him of his voice) that afternoon: I want to sleep. And he did.
My eulogy for Dad, which I read, while choking back tears, at his funeral three days later, was the most difficult poem I have ever written. Difficult, not because it was stylistically challenging, but because it gathered feelings that I had never told him about:

In Memoriam Dad (1940 - 2019)

You slipped away on Thursday evening
When the machines they hooked you up to
Were not paying attention.
Every line, flat as death.
No getting away from facts.

When I saw you, you looked so alone in sleep
Not even God s thunder, as Mum would joke,
Could rouse you (being hard of hearing
Was hardly an excuse).
Your body was tilted towards the window,
Like mimosa to light,
Waiting for the sun
To open the petals of your spirit.

Who were you, my father?
You were an angry young man
Who bottled the rage of the 60s
And uncorked it in every job you ever held
(And sometimes on our buttocks when mischief
Got the better of us).
Maybe that was why jobs
Never held you long enough in any one place.

You were a printer s apprentice
Who rolled out miles of stories in newsprint.
How apt my career would run a parallel course
As reporter and poet, making track in stories.

That Thursday afternoon, you had pointed out
How my face had appeared in a Straits Times ad.
You couldn t speak (pneumonia had robbed you
Of your tongue) but the pride in your eyes
Was more than enough for me.

Later, your doctor would tell me how
You had mentioned it to him too.
And I remember your stash of newspaper clippings,
Collected like a miser over 20 years,
Of every story about me ever published.

I don t know if you recall,
But you had been training me since I was 12 for this.
Remember how I helped you draft (and type) your job applications?
I was a hungry reader and that was proof enough for you
I was a good enough writer.

You had beautiful penmanship, every cursive line
Like a gentle flourish,
The occupational hazard of a printer taking pride
In how words are presented.
I must have picked up this trait
For students would sometimes tell me
(When I m not annoying them
Or annoying to them)
They like my handwriting.

You were a messy and picky eater.
You were stubborn to a fault, stubborn by default.
You made a Worker s Party supporter out of me.
You were a warden in church who gave
And prayed generously
Because you feared God in the only way Catholics knew how.
You were Mum s strength
The past 12 years when ill health
Spun the joy out of her life.
You were indefatigable, organising
Her medical appointments (and your own)
The way a secretary does.

But your devotion was also your weakness.
You refused to see how your own body
Had weakened, week by week,
Organ by organ.

Dad, I had taken you for granted for a long time,
More times than I fear I will remember.
I was angry with you, curt, abrupt, even hostile.
There were times I even hanged up the phone on you.

There is now no time left on the clock
To make it up to you.
And because I m a lapsed Catholic
Who half-believe in the afterlife,
I will never be able to.
And for this, I will ever regret.

I had dedicated my first book of poetry to you and Mum
But I ve never written about you.
This poem is my last testament to make up for lost time
But not the loss of you.

The sun is out today, after a week of chill and rain.
It is a glorious day
For a man to meet the Son of Man.
Goodbye, Dad. Your deadline is here, your story has been filed.
Let the printer begin rolling
Reams of prayers and thank yous.

Felix Cheong is the author of 19 books, including six volumes of poetry, a trilogy of satirical flash fiction and five children s picture books. His works have been nominated for the prestigious Frank O Connor Award and the Singapore Literature Prize. His latest work is a libretto written with composer Chen Zhangyi, Panic Love: An A Cappella Opera, released as a music video.

Felix (right) and his late father.
Conferred the Young Artist Award in 2000, Felix holds a Masters in Creative Writing and is currently a university adjunct lecturer with the National University of Singapore, University of Newcastle, Murdoch University and Curtin University.
I Wonder What You Would Say
Margaret Thomas
Dearest Pa,
It is late at night as I write this here in my cluttered little study. Behind me and to the side are shelves stuffed with books, some of which I may never get around to reading. On other shelves are piles of files, stacks of old notepads and paper for recycling, boxes of this and that, and yet more books.
It occurs to me that I could be describing your study, the space you always had for yourself in the three houses we lived in over the years, homes that were rich with the laug