“Huh? This flat is only owned by one
person, and he is selling it off? Must be cashing in…”
Singapore public housing is weird. It is
the only public housing system in the world where the prices are allowed to (in
fact, manipulated to) skyrocket to nose-bleed levels. It takes a typical
Singaporean couple 30 years (on dual income) to pay off the housing
mortgage. So I don’t often come across
one person being the sole owner of a flat.
(one man of God I highly respect said
before that this system is what keeps many Singaporean believers in bondage and
unwilling/unable to step out and fulfil their God-given calling, but that’s a
different matter…)
“Hey, the seller is my age! Must be some
high income fellow. Better flip over to the last page of the land title search
to double check the spelling of his name…”
You can tell a person’s year of birth from
their IC numbers, that is how I knew the seller was the same age as me. I
flipped over to the last page of the title search to get the name for the legal
document I had to prepare for the relevant government body. Then I saw on the
words:
Notice
of Death - The surviving tenant is hereby registered as sole proprietor of the
above lease
The Notice of Death was dated May last
year. Scanning back, the flat was transferred to the seller and his wife 10
years before that.
10 years. A lot of
life can happen in 10 years.
You can build loads of good memories in 10 years. That
is 10 years of Christmas, Chinese New Year, birthdays and anniversaries. During
10 years you can have kids and have them grow up to a schooling age. A lot of life
can happen in 10 years.
The date of the transfer was at the end of November
11 years ago. That means the couple had properly moved over and settled in by
Christmas that year. That flat was near a part of Singapore where a lot of expats
stay. So they must have had a really special Christmas that year, moving into a
part of Singapore where they celebrate Christmas in style.
The wife died last year in May. I had this picture in my mind of the man, now
facing his first Christmas without his wife. Now the fact that they celebrate
Christmas in style at that part of Singapore probably doesn’t mean much anymore.
He can walk the streets there and remember the first time he saw the sights
with his wife. And those memories will just drive in deeper the pain of his
recent loss.
Now selling off that flat makes sense.
Maybe he’d just want to start afresh, somewhere new, where the memories won’t
be so poignant and painful. Does he have kids? I wonder what his kids think. Do
they want to start over again somewhere else? Knowing kids, I think they would
rather not move. They already suffered a massive, tragic change in their lives
a year ago. Moving now would probably be nearly as traumatic a change for them.
Maybe the dad has already thought it through?
But if he was already too overcome with grief, he might have just imposed the
change upon them anyway. I don’t agree with that, but I can’t really blame him
either. I can’t imagine how I myself would deal with things if anything that
tragic ever happened to me.
Conclusion:
Over time, there are more opportunities for
bad things to happen. Someone’s life can be massively turned around overnight.
And we usually can’t tell when such things will happen. We can only walk
closely with God and trust that he will prepare us for the trials and
challenges that come ahead.
I guess I identify with this faceless
stranger more because he is my age. In my mind I am using my imagination to fill
in all the details about his life. I might even try my hand at writing a short
story about it someday, but I don’t know what the point of the story is.
Okay, I gotta stop thinking about his life
and get back to living MY life. I have already typed in more errors than usual
in the legal documents for this case!
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