Goodbye, my dear friend...

Love Me

By Collin Raye

I read a note my grandma wrote back in nineteen twenty-three. Grandpa kept it in his coat, and he showed it once to me. He said,"Boy, you might not understand, but a long, long time ago, Grandma's daddy didn't like me none, but i loved your grandma so."

We had this crazy plan to meet and run away together. Get married in the first town we came to, and live forever. But nailed to the tree where we were supposed to meet, instead I found this letter, and this is what it said: "If you get there before i do, don't give up on me. I'll meet you when my chores are through;I don't know how long i'll be. But i'm not gonna let you down, darling wait and see."

And between now and then, till i see you again, I'll be loving you. Love, me.

I read those words just hours before my grandma passed away, in the doorway of a church where me and grandpa stopped to pray. I know I'd never seen him cry in all my fifteen years. But as he said these words to her, his eyes filled up with tears.

If you get there before I do, don't give up on me. I'll meet you when my chores are through. I don't know how long I'll be. But i'm not gonna let you down, darling wait and see. And between now and then, till i see you again, I'll be loving you. Love, me. Between now and then, till I see you again, I'll be loving you. Love, me.

This is a song that I will listen to whenever I am feeling sad over the demise of an elderly. The part that I like the most is this:
“If you get there before I do, don't give up on me. I'll meet you when my chores are through. I don't know how long I'll be. But i'm not gonna let you down, darling wait and see. And between now and then, till i see you again, I'll be loving you. Love, me. Between now and then, till I see you again, I'll be loving you. Love, me.” – It signifies my promise to the departed elderly that I will continue to bring a piece of sunshine for the elderly who are still with us. I don’t know how long am I able to continue to do so but as long as it is still within my ability, I will try my very best. Also I will always cherish and love the time that I have spent with every elderly. Hee… Just sharing some of my thoughts that have crystallized during my few years in Touch.

Our elderly cannot be with us forever and ever. The time that we can spend together with them is very short. However, what matters is not how long but how meaningful is our time spent together. Each and every visit may be the last time that we are able to share laughter and joy. I will always archive the happiest time in some pockets of my mind and take them out whenever I am feeling down or when I am missing the elderly. The memories cheer me up a lot.

Mdm Ong’s courage and determination to live life independently has taught me to be brave and 潇洒 whenever I face the various adversities in life. I think not only Mdm Ong bah, all the elderly have let us seen this 不倒翁 spirit. I really hope that I can be like them when I am old liao!

It really feels better after I have written something to express my feelings. Anyone who is feeling sad can try this method too! I think this is a good way for us to organize our thoughts and say our own goodbye to Mdm Ong…

Regards,
Li Xian

I come from Hong Kong and my mother tongue language is Cantonese. It makes me feel like going back home when I join the Canto group and talk with the elderly as the same way when I was in Hong Kong. Haha =)

This week we spent lots of time talking with 金婆. There were more sad stories coming from her. No doubt, she was born at the wrong time. As she said, it does really matter for an 18 years old girl and 8 years old kid in facing the challenging situations during the war period. Even after the war, everything was still in a mess but you had no choice but shared the burden of the family. I believed she was facing an extremely hard time during this period, especially after her husband died and she needed to bring up three children on her own. Now I think it is time for her to enjoy the life but she gets some problems in her legs. Maybe next time we may also sing a few Chinese songs to her and drive away her sadness…..

At the end, we had a great time in celebrating birthday to Janicia, Jiancong and Yue Xuan, and it was grateful that we always had the last song in the Hokkien group too!!! It was always a good time joining with TOUCH and I really appreciate the students here and you all voluntarily and well organize the visit to the elderly…..I believe we also have many elderly need to be cared but we only have a few students to get involve in HK…..

Wing Lok

Last Visit b4 Exams...

Hey, shall show all of you some photos that were taken during this visit!! Hope everyone's faces appear at least once in these photos! =)



I was with the Canto group this time (as usual, haha =p). We first went to visit Kam Por, and this visit to Kam Por was a really interesting one! One of the mysteries of was unveiled... We finally know Kam Por's full name le!! Wat we are calling her is actually the last word of her name, 金. So we are actually calling her 金婆 in canto... Haha...

Also now we know more about her past. She got married at around 22 and her husband passed away when she was 36, leaving her with three children and the eldest was only 12. Then she told us about how she earned a living by selling drinks without a license and was nearly caught. It's the first time she told us so much about her past, and now we feel we know her better!! =)

Then came a knock on her door, and we thought it's one of her family members again, like the previous visit. But it's actually her fren who lives upstairs. Being also a friendly and talkative lady, she joined us in the chat. Some of us who have went for the TOUCH MAF actually have seen her b4, she is the very naugthy lady who tried to 'sa-bo' LiXian during Pass-the-parcel!! Haha...

Kam Por started sharing abt her war time stories, what she worked as during the war etc. Then the argument between Kam Por and her friend started! Her friend is actually ~9/10 years younger than Kam Por, and she was saying that being 10 years older is no big deal! But Kam Por was saying that she is actually around 19 years old when the war started, and being 19 years old she had already started working and could earn a living. Then the argument went on for a while, then we just sat, listened and laughed... =p

Her friend also taught us self defence using keys! Interesting!! But I wonder has she tried it b4, and issit effective? lol... SHHhhh....

Our second stop was to visit Mdm Tan, when the two groups will meet!! I had a secret plan to surprise the November babies, but only a few were informed! Accomplices include PinChuan, Lixian and ZhenQin!!

Partners in crime: Lighting the candles. Three candles for three November Babies!

From top to bottom, left to right: Here comes the cake, Janicia: Huh? Whose birthday today? Huh, mine included arh!! =) ,

Happy Birthday to Janicia, JianCong and Yue Xuan!!

and all other November Babies from TOUCH who couldn't make it for this visit!!

Then the song singing continued!! =)

From top to bottom, left to right: The cake was passed around to be kept and cut later so as to not dirty mdm Tan's place (with a murderous intent!), Mdm Tan clapping along while we sing, Our Superstar JianCong!!

Everyone singing happily to the songs play and lyrics prepared by JianCong:

All the volunteers that came for this visit:

Hope everyone had a meaningful and fun-filled last visit before the exams!

To all TOUCH volunteers: 加油 for the exams!! Good Luck!!

Note: If you all want the photos, they're with me... Add me on MSN, then I'll try to send them to u... =)

Jasmine...>",<

Last visit before exams....

Yesterday mark the last day of our visit before our exams. Due to the lack of homes to visit, we were divided into 2 grps, i.e. the Hokkien and Cantonese speaking members. Well I belong to the hokkien speaking group...the first home we visited was Mr Chui's. We had conversation as usual, but what made this visit much special than the rest was the fact that one of our members, Jian Cong, brought along his guitar and started strumming melodious music for Mr Chui to hear. Together with the rest of the members, I started to sing along with the lyrics provided by Jian Cong. During this sing along session, we discovered the singing talent of Derui and the great guitar skills that Jian Cong have. :) I'm sure Mr Chui enjoyed himself as he requested us to sing some of the songs he like. In fact, he had already asked us to prepare a list of songs which he would like to hear in our next visit!

After the visit to Mr Chui's home, we dropped by Mdm Tan's home. We gathered with the rest of the cantonese speaking members and started our sing along session there. I could see Mdm Tan's smile as we sang harmoniously with the rhythm of the guitar. Janica, Jian Cong and Yue Xuan were caught by surprise when a birthday cake was brought in. We started singing the Birthday song as the november babies stood in the middle of the room, still surprised by the celebration. Once again, I would like to wish the 3 of u, Happy Birthday!!!

On the whole, I feel that the guitar cum sing along session is a great idea to entertain the elderly during our visits. This not only bond the members together when we sing, but it also makes the visits much interesting for the elderly themselves. But this will trouble Jian Cong though...haha~anyway I do appreciate the effort he put into this guitar session. Really great job! This was indeed a memorable last visit before the exams. Last but not least, I wish everyone all the best in the upcoming exams! :D

-Valerie-

Hi. Sorry for the late entry. It’s now my turn to update on last Saturday’s visit on behalf of the canto group. We visisted 3 elderlys that day : Kam Por, Mr. Paolo and Mdm Lim.

Kam Por was in great spirits, why? Must be her grandson's visit that morning. The bunch of us were settling down around Kam Po to chat when a mysterious guy appeared beside us. Kam Po told him to sit down with us, until she realised he's actually her grandson! When she realised that, she was extremely amused by her own mistake. Her grandson wanted to give her some cash, and then there was a round of pushing. You know, “Take it lah”, “No lah”, “Take it lah”, “No lah”. Although her grandson only stayed for a few minutes, he really did raise Kam Por’s spirits. She appeared to be so cheerful throughout the whole visit. And she finally said she’ll remember me the next time and not think I’m a new volunteer again. When I left I told her “Kam Por must remember me next time ar” then she was like “Ok ok.” Next visit.. i will test her XD

Then we visited Mr Paolo. I don't know how to spell his name so I made it up. Correct me, anyone? If i'm not mistaken, he's not in our list of elderlys but we visited him because of a promise. Anyway, it's to thank him for helping us out during MAF. Thanks, Mr. Paolo XD Like Kam Po, he was quite cheerful throughout the visit, although sometimes we have to speak louder to catch his attention. Jasmine helped to sweep his floor, which appeared to be clean until she brought the broom under the bed and cupboards. There was a lot of dust and dirt that was hidden in inconspicuous corners. Sounds like me when I'm forced to sweep my own room.

And then, we made our way to Mdm Lim's house. I think she can be awarded the most popular elderly. Because every week there will be at least 2 groups who visit her. We sat and chatted with her about her favourite topic: Kopi. She told us about how good she feels after drinking coffee, but because of her addiction to caffeine she doesn't consume other drinks (not even plain water o.O). And she has no appetite to eat. And she gets sleepless nights because of too much coffee. "Then cut down on your intake," we said. And she was like, "I can't. I will feel very uncomfortable." And so she continues to drink and continues to lose her appetite and sleep. Vicious cycle? = =''

Here's something I found: http://www.teeccino.com/caffeineaddiction.aspx

Do you think this could help her? Lol

- Enqi

A Visit to Be Remembered By Me Always!

This is the first time I am blogging in TOUCH blog yeh. Hee... It is a long time since I contribute to TOUCH summary! This visit is a special one for me because two of my cousins followed me to the visit. They are Debra and Esther, 12 years old and 14 years old respectively. They have asked me some questions about my volunteering experiences and they are quite interested in joining me in all the different visits. So I think I will try to bring them around as much as I can. It is good for them to see another side of our Singapore society.

Me and my cousins joined the Chinese/English speaking group. I knew we would be visiting Mdm Ong and I think Mdm Ong is the perfect person for my cousins to visit. I have always admired the cheerful way that Mdm Ong has towards life. I hope my cousins can see how difficult life can be for some people and yet they can live happily.

Today Mdm Ong got a lot of groceries to buy. We got two shopping groups. One was led by Janicia and armed by Margret and Debra. Another group was being led by... none other then Mdm Ong herself and accompanied by Khoon Hong, Esther and me. We are all quite surprised when she said that she want to go and do the shopping herself. She seems to be very strong today and so we didn't object. She taught us how to open her mini oxygen tank and we pushed her in a wheelchair with the tank.

Mdm Ong is super strong today lor! She can get out of the wheelchair without any of our support to choose the stuff she wanted to buy. She can make do without our help and oxygen support for a full 15 to 20mins! I think today we really witnessed a great improvement to her health.

To see Mdm Ong like this really make me feel that what little that we can do for the elderly is really worthwhile. The groceries that we have helped her to do has really helped her relieve her household chore pressure. And whenever we leave her house, I can feel her gratefulness for our help. She will always salute us when we are leaving. And she is quite mischieveous also! She will try to make fun of us whenever we are caught unaware.

Everytime when I come to visit, I will feel so energetic. A whole week of frustration at work or lesson seem so insignificant when I come for visit. How much is my frustration worth when compared to the difficulties that the elderly faced each day. So I will always strive to make the elderly smile and forgo their own frustration momentarily. I hope a moment's laughter can be remembered later when things are not good for them and bring a bit of happiness for them.

Hope you all are not bored by my long blog! :P

TOUCH Woosh!!!!
Li Xian

Touch Visit - 27 Oct 2007

27th Oct 2007
It was a Saturday (weekend).
It was raining (nice weather to sleep).
It was 08:00 am (too early to wake up).

Suddenly my alarm RANG. Still feeling sleepy, I disabled my alarm and tried to go back to my dreamland. Just as I was about to sleep again, suddenly I remembered that we had a TOUCH visit. I cannot sleep anymore; I have to go to TOUCH. The elderlies were waiting for me there. Haiz…..Kind hearted is really one of my major weaknesses…..So what to do…. I sacrificed my sleep and dragged myself out of my bed for the sake of the elderlies no matter how tired I was and set off for TOUCH visit.

It was 10:30am when I arrived at the TOUCH centre. As usual I joined the Hokkien speaking group even though I have a poor command of Hokkien. Our first stop of the day was Mdm Lim’s house. We started off with some routine questions like “have you eaten?” , “what did you eat just now?”, “how is your back?”, etc. We chatted quite normally until we came to the topic on her back problems. She complained about her back; how it gave her problems and how the pain prevented her from sleeping. She then linked the topic to death like what she did sometime when we talked about her illnesses. The topic about death is forbidden in TOUCH session as we do not want the elderlies to develop such negative thinking. Maybe in future, even though we are concerned about their illnesses, we should also try to cut down on this kind of topic that can link to death. So, immediately we try to change the topic to something else more happy and relaxing. We decided to give this zhong ren to Choo Min who was sitting beside her. Instead of coming out with a topic, she colluded with Mdm Lim and started bullying the guys. Mdm Lim suan us one by one and said we are bad people. For example, Mdm Lim was telling me that tan skin is good. But suddenly, 0.1sec later, she turned to Jooch and shoot him, saying that he is too white and that’s not good. Mdm Lim was really on TOP FORM that day. She ‘shot’ all the guys down one by one, leaving all of us speechless. She seemed to be enjoying that moment a lot as she kept laughing as she continued to suan us. However, we did not mind at all as long as this can make her happy and bring laughter to her (Haiz… told you all le… Kind hearted is really my weakness). Tong ku de re zi really zhen nan guo, the clock ticked slowly to 12:00pm before we were spared of all the suaning as we needed to proceed to Mdm Tan house le.

Mdm Tan looked very happy when she saw us. As usual she is very hospitable and wanted to offered us drinks and food even before we sat down. And as usual, I will tell her that we ate something before coming up to her house. As Mdm Tan is illiterate, she took out some mails and asked us to help her see what they were about. One of the mails were in fact some post cards, however, we have difficulties explaining the use of the post card to her. Luckily after some attempts we managed to explain to her. After that we started the chit chatting session. As compared to Mdm Lim, I feel that Mdm Tan is much more optimistic, at least she didn’t talk about death and unhappy things. But that day she and Mdm Lim seemed to have one thing in common – that was they were both on form. Mdm Tan seemed to be talking much more that day as compared to last time. There was a point of time when she talked to Khoon Hong and De Rui for quite long. Because she spoke quite softly, I cannot catch what she was talking about even though I tried very hard to listen. This chat continued all the way until 01:00 pm where we had to stop our session and gathered at the void deck for debrief which will round off the TOUCH session for the day…….

Everytime I went to TOUCH, I feel quite sad for the elderly living there. They seemed pitiful living there alone. Moreover, as most of them have difficulties in moving around, this will mean that they will have to stay in their home for most of the time. Staying alone in the house with nothing to do may also allow them to have more time to think of negative things just like Mdm Lim, so our visits would mean alot to them. I can tell that they feel very happy whenever they see us and they appreciate our presence a lot. Maybe we cannot always keep them happy during every visit but our chatting with them and singing for them can make them feel that there are still people out there that care for them and they are not alone. So let’s hope that everyone can continue to TOUCH their hearts with our care and love for them and keep this spirit going….until…… even after we grow old and students from NUS CSC will also come to visit us like what we are doing now…… (Pls don’t be surprise.Yes I am Jun Hui. These are all written by me. Haha)

Everyone pls feel honored because this is my first ever blog entry. Wo ba wo de di yi chi xian gay ni meng le.

Jun Hui