Skip to main content

Dad

As I sat in the cab to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning of the day my father breathed his last, this song was playing on the radio.

There are several interpretations of the meaning of the song but I thought that some of the lyrics were quite apt (although his name is not Danny).

Oh Danny Boy the pipes, the pipes are calling
from glen to glen and down the mountain side
The summer's gone and all the roses dying
'tis you 'tis you must go and I must bide

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be there in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy I love you so

And when ye come and all the flowers are dying
If I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an Ave there for me

And I shall hear tho' soft you tread above me
And all my grave will warmer sweeter be
If you will bend and tell me that you love me
Then I shall sleep in peace until you come to me

Bye, Dad...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A lesson in love

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. -Mother Teresa Most of the time my eyes just glaze over when I see article upon article of football news. One caught my glazing eye over the weekend, though - 'De la Cruz - Mother Theresa in boots' , because of the familiar name. Mother Teresa, that is. It was the first time I’d ever heard of this de la Cruz guy, an EPL player who hails from Ecuador (GNI per capita US$2,630; as a comparison, Singapore’s is US$27, 490 – source: BBC country profiles ). His is a great story to illustrate that famous Chinese saying about not forgetting your roots. According to the article, ‘Each month a proportion of that salary (about S$150,000) Reading pay him - be it 10 per cent in January or 20 per cent in February - goes direct to the village’ (where he grew up). (Picture and profile from here ) Here's what he has been credited for: 1. 'The 2002 World Cup,' de la Cruz reflects, 'finan

True train school

‘Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.’ How would you like to have such a headmaster? I finally re-read (read it first as a teenager) Totto-chan, The Little Girl at the Window , a ‘school story’ by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, translated by Dorothy Britton. Totto-chan is the name Tesuko Kuroyanagi called herself, and the book is about her life during her school days at Tomoe Gakuen. Totto-chan was expelled from her first elementary school because of her ‘disruptive’ behaviour, which included constantly opening and closing her desk top (because she was so thrilled by it), ‘vandalising’ her desk (because there wasn’t enough space on the piece of paper to draw) and standing by the classroom window waiting for street musicians to pass by or talking to swallows. Her mother, although probably alarmed about the

No wonder

According to a poll of about 300 people, reported in yesterday's Sunday Times, (how come nobody ever asks me these things?) , the Seven Wonders of Singapore are (in order of merit): 1. The Esplanade (a whopping 82 votes) 2. Changi Airport (53 votes) 3. Sentosa 4. The Merlion 5. The Singapore River 6. Food 7. Mount Faber and LKY (tie - 10 votes each) Some 'offbeat choices' which didn't make it to the top 7: aunties selling tissue paper at coffee shops, Singlish, kiasuism, 4D-Toto outlets and Newater (said someone of Newater: 'We are probably the only country with branded recycled sewage.' Well said, ha ha.). Maybe it's a personal bias but I feel that a 'Wonder' must also have strong historical and cultural/social value (so I'm rather miffed that Angkor Wat didn't make it to the 7 Wonders of the World; in fact it was never in the running for the top 7). Therefore, these choices are a little too modern for me. The Esplanade, for example, is a