It was a beautiful Saturday morning. The sun blazed overhead, its rays burning into my skin—but I didn’t mind. I’ve always loved the warmth of the sun, just as I love the wildness of the rain, thunder, and lightning. These natural elements never scared me. They fascinated me. The experts say the sun is good for us—vitamin D, immunity, all that. But to me, it’s more than science.

The sun energizes me, recharges me like a weak battery suddenly plugged into its power source. The wind picked up as I walked along the path, a path that felt endless, winding like a giant maze. Every turn looked the same, leading to nowhere yet somehow back to the beginning. “It’s very far... right at the very corner. A long walk,” said the caretaker, glancing at my palm where I had scribbled the block and log number.

He sat under a tree, bare-chested, sweat trickling down his neck, hat tilted against the sun. I looked down at the numbers again. Block and log—like some invisible address. And then it hit me. Looking for the dead felt oddly like looking for someone in an HDB flat. You need the block number, the unit number... The only difference is they don’t answer the door. Isn’t it strange? In life, we hunt for addresses to find the living. In death, we still search for numbers to find the memory of someone who’s no longer there. Singapore efficiency doesn’t end with the living, it seems.

“You might want to try and get somebody to give you a lift.”

“It’s okay. I can walk.” I told him.

This is one walk I would gladly take. If only I had my camera, I would’ve captured each tombstone. Why take pictures of tombstones? I don’t really know. Maybe because each one feels like a person, frozen in stone, whispering a story. A name, a date, a few chosen words—that’s all they leave behind. But even those fragments hold echoes of laughter, pain, dreams, and regrets. I love stories. They’re the invisible threads that connect us, binding strangers across time and space.

And tombstones are the final punctuation marks of someone’s chapter, often unread, yet still standing. A photo might seem small, but it’s a way of saying: I see you. You mattered. Even if I never knew you. Photographing them is my way of keeping time still. A way to hold a moment that cannot be repeated.

The sun’s angle, the breeze, the feeling in my chest as I read the names—once it passes, it’s gone. But in a photo, there’s a chance to revisit. Not the dead, perhaps, but the self who stood in their presence. A cemetery is a strange kind of gallery. A place of death, yet full of artistry—architecture, symbols, history. It’s where grief meets design, where sorrow is etched into marble and love is carved into stone.

Every grave is a canvas, telling stories not just of the person buried there, but of the ones left behind—those who chose the words, the flowers, the shape of the headstone. Some grand, some modest. Some weathered and forgotten, others polished and visited often. There are angels with broken wings, hands reaching upward, lotus buds frozen in stone. Dates that span a century, and names that no longer echo in the living world.

Yet they remain here—silent art pieces in a gallery curated by time and memory. And like any gallery, you don’t just look. You feel. You imagine. You mourn. You wonder who they were, who they loved, and who still remembers them.

“There’s nothing in there,” my husband once said. “Just bones.”

“Yes,” I replied. “But bones that once held breath, laughter, grief. Bones that once danced, prayed, cursed, dreamed. Bones of people who loved and were loved.”

But I wasn’t here for the bones. I came for what they couldn’t hold anymore—the stories, the fragments, the silent echoes. I came for the memories buried deeper than the soil. Especially the ones buried with Dad. We are born, we grow, we age, and we die. That’s the cycle. A rhythm as old as time, as predictable as breath. And yet, we fear it. From the moment we understand language, we are taught that death is something to dread.

Conditioned into silence, warned with threats—of hell, of punishment, of eternal fire. We do good not out of joy, but out of fear. Not because we love life, but because we’re terrified of what comes after it. But what really is death? Is it the end of everything, or just a closing of one chapter? Is it the absence of breath, or the beginning of another form of silence?

I have seen death many times. Held its hand in hospital beds. Watched it arrive quietly, not with thunder but with peace. Sometimes it comes as a release, other times as a thief. But always, it leaves questions in its wake—questions no religion, no science, no philosophy can fully answer.

I didn’t ask for much this year when my husband asked what I wanted for my birthday. Without hesitation, I told him, “I want to go back. Alone.” I saw the shift in his face—the quiet hurt he didn’t voice. He looked puzzled, but not angry. After all these years together, he understood me in a way that didn’t need explaining. Still, I imagine it stung.

As if, for a moment, he had become the second man in my heart. Not because I loved him any less—but because I needed to be with someone who no longer walked this world, but still lived so vividly in my thoughts. It wasn’t about choosing one over the other. It was about closing a chapter I had left unfinished. And perhaps he knew that. Because he didn’t say no. He simply let me go.

Later, my friend Sue said, “You talk about your dad like he’s still alive. You have to let him go.” But how do you let go of someone who still feels so present, whose voice still echoes when the house is quiet?

But every time I return to Sembawang, it feels like he’s still there. I find myself looking for him without meaning to—on his bed, in his chair, behind the half-open door. My eyes search, even though my mind knows better. His absence still has a presence. It clings to the air, seeps into the walls, lingers in the corners of silence. I never saw his body.

By the time I returned, they had already buried him. I had told them not to wait. I thought I was being practical, even strong. But I didn’t realize how much I’d come to regret it. Closure, they say, comes with the final goodbye. But I never got mine. And because of that, some part of me still believes he's just in the next room—resting, reading, waiting.

Come to the cemetery,” my sister said, her voice steady over the phone as I rode in the taxi from Changi. But instead of turning toward the graves, I asked the driver to take me straight to the house. I needed to see Mak Cik first.

Would the cemetery help? I wondered. Would standing over a slab of stone really make it feel any more real? I still wouldn’t see his face. I wouldn’t hear his voice. I wouldn’t be able to hold his hand and say, “I’m here.”

A headstone couldn't answer the ache. And so I went to the place where his scent still lingered, where the echoes of his presence were stronger than silence. Maybe I was looking for the illusion of him, instead of the truth. Or maybe I wasn’t ready to face the truth at all. Now I realize: I have to let go of that hand I’ve been holding onto in memory.

I have to allow him to rest. Maybe in doing so, I’ll find a way to rest too. “You’re clinging to precious moments,” my sister said gently. “It’s hard not to cry.” But I haven’t cried. Not since the day he died. I think I held it all in—as if holding back tears could somehow hold back the truth.

Still, the memory returns like clockwork: me sitting beside him, his hand in mine, the slow unraveling of his strength. Watching someone waste away is a quiet kind of violence. That memory etched itself into me, but it’s not the one I want to hold onto. There must be more—more of him. Of who he was before the illness. Before the silence. I want to remember the sound of his laughter, the way he explained words using his little dictionary, the sparkle in his eyes when he discovered something new.

Those memories… they feel buried. Not in the ground, but in time. I have to find them. I owe it to him. And maybe to myself.

Online, in one of my many forums, someone once asked: “What do you want done with your body when you die?”

I replied without hesitation: “I want to be carried deep into the jungle and left for the wild animals. Let my death give life. That’s the cycle. My body feeding others—what better end?” Someone replied,

“They won’t bury you in a Muslim cemetery.” I laughed.

Even in death, people are still fighting over bodies. Do I care? I’ll be dead. Bury me anywhere—Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or a forgotten patch of no man’s land. Soil is soil. The earth doesn’t care for our labels.

Cemeteries, to me, are a waste of land. Why reserve sacred plots for empty shells? Why preserve silence in marble when the living are struggling for space? Build homes instead. Let the living breathe. We, the dead, have already had our time. If your family truly loves you, they don’t need a grave to prove it.

You live on in their hearts, in their habits, in the way they sit or smile or grieve. Dust is dust. Can anyone tell the difference between the dust of a Muslim or a Hindu? Between the bones of a Chinese, a Malay, or an Indian? No. Nature doesn’t categorize. Nature erases distinction.

So why don’t we talk about death? Why treat it like a secret? It’s the only thing guaranteed. I accept that truth. I’ve held the hands of the dying—seen their fear dissolve into peace. “I’m not afraid anymore,” they whisper. We often think death is painful. But who creates that pain? We do. The Self clings: I am important. I wrote something brilliant. I bought something beautiful. I deserve to be noticed. And when no one notices? That, too, feels like death.

Maybe that’s why death can feel like a release. A quiet surrender. A freedom from the ache of expectation. “Look out for the green tiles,” my sister’s voice cuts through the drift of thought, sharp and sudden. I blink. The world snaps back into focus. The heat, the sun, the scent of dried grass. A man on a motorbike passes by and smiles—a flash of recognition stirs, but I can’t place him. His face, like so many others, floats in the haze of memory. I make a mental note of his license plate. Maybe I’ll remember later. Maybe it’s not important. Right now, I’m here. With Dad. That’s all that matters.

My flow of thoughts drifts back to time with Dad. “You’ve been coming home late these few days,” he said as I sat beside him in the living room. He was watching wrestling on TV—one of his favorite programs. I used to love watching him watch wrestling. It was oddly entertaining, the way his hands and legs moved in sync with the wrestlers on screen, as if he, too, were fighting alongside them.

“You’re up to something, aren’t you?” he asked, eyes still fixed on the screen. I smiled, excited as always. Everytime I'm back late and if not working, he knows I'm up to something.

“Yes. I’m up to something. I’ve got something to show you.” “Wait till the program’s over. Go take your shower. Had your dinner? Then we’ll talk.”

Thirty minutes later… “So, what is it you wanted to show me?”

“Look here, Dad.” I pulled out my books and a file filled with graphs.

“Commodity trading? You’re doing commodity trading?”

“I’m learning how. It’s free! Isn’t that great?” I said excitedly, watching as he flipped through the book: Essentials of Commodity Trading, and the printed graphs.

“You want to tell me how to read this? And what type of commodity are we talking about?”

And just like that, we talked. We shared. We learned together. The enthusiasm of newfound knowledge filled the room.

“We must not stop learning,” he once said softly. And I can still hear it. The image of him sitting by the coffee table comes alive again—his little notebook open, a dictionary beside him. He used to jot down new words he’d learned from the books he bought at secondhand shops. That was Dad.

The man with the notebook and the endless stack of dictionaries—English-Japanese, English-Spanish, English-Italian, English-Mandarin. The list went on.

Drops of sweat begin to run down my forehead and neck, snapping me back to the present. I’ve been sitting here a while. How long? Does it matter? I look up. The sun is nearly overhead. The heat swells.

The cemetery is quiet now. The family I saw earlier is gone.

“Now look at this word... You’ve heard it before?”

“No, Dad.” His voice still lingers at the back of my mind as I begin to make my way out.

The walk feels shorter now. Another man on a bike rides slowly past—this time in a light blue t-shirt. Same motorbike. The crowd at the nearby Chinese cemetery is growing.

It’s the last day of the Qing Ming Festival.

“Look it up in the dictionary,” he says in my memory. “What does it say?” I read it to him.

“Let’s create a sentence with that word. How many can we make from just one?” “Several, Dad.”

“Each sentence gives you a different meaning, yes?”

​“Yes, Dad. You’re right. Always.”