Journey with Joseph Lim - Reunion

The year was 1983. I had finished my officer cadet officer course in the RSAF and gotten the rank of 2nd Lt as an Air Executive Officer.

I cannot really remember the month and date. Just remembered that my dad told one of my aunt and cousin from Malaysia had come to Singapore and requested to see me in the hotel where they are staying. I can't even remember the name of the hotel that they stayed in, just that it was a hotel just one street parallel to Orchard Road, the shopping hub of Singapore.

I went to the hotel and met them at the lobby....

It was in that hotel lobby that I came to know my real identity. The aunt and cousin that came to Singapore and requested to see me turn out to be my mother and brother.

My mom and my brother, Robert Ng, told me the events that led me to be adopted by my uncle in Singapore. This is what happened to my family in Malaysia.

My mother was married to a young man before WWII. Her first husband came from a well-to-do family and he spoke English and Japanese fluently. This is one of the reasons why they were not harassed by the Japanese during the WWII. However, when the war was over and the communist became rather active in Malaysia during those post war period, her husband was caught by some of the communist members and never found again. My mom and brother, Robert Ng (that is why his surname is different from us), went through some very difficult time until my mom met my dad.

According to Robert, my dad was lorry driver at that time. They got married shortly after they met. Though Robert came from my mom's previous marriage, my dad had treated him as his own son. Later, 4 more boys were born to the Lim family, with one of my brother being a down syndrome child. I am the youngest in the family. Having 5 boys to bring up is a tremendous financial stress on the family. To add to this financial stress, my dad was diagnosed with cancer.

The cancer wiped out our family's saving. My grandmother, uncles and aunts rallied around to provide whatever financial resources for my dad's medical treatment. It was during those difficult period that Robert managed to witness to my parents and both of them come to know the Lord personally.

Robert shared with me that he visited my dad on the last day before he was called home to be with the Lord. Dad was unusually alert on that day and even asked Robert to go specifically to a certain Indian store to buy him a packet of Indian fried noodles. You see, my dad was suffering from stomach cancer and could hardly eat at the last stage of his life.

Though Robert was surprised with my dad's request, he went nonetheless, to buy that Indian fried noodles. Even more surprising was that my dad managed to finish more than half (or almost all?) of the noodles, which is rather spicy. After he finishes the noodles, he gave his last word to Robert. He told Robert that he had treated Robert as like his own son when he married my mom. Now that he is going to be with the Lord, Robert will become the 'Man of the house' and my dad requested that Robert takes care of not only my mom but all the brothers in the family like his own biological brothers. Robert accepted that heavy responsibility of being the 'man of the house' even though he was still going through his college.

With dad's passing, mom had to start working in order to feed 4 young boys while Robert was already in college. Life was very tough to say the least. I understand that mom had to go from house to house washing clothing to feed all of us. Two of my brothers were in school while my down syndrome brother and me was left at home so that my mom can go about her clothing washing jobs.

It was during those very difficult years that my grandmother made a proposal to my mom. She told my mom that our oldest uncle in Singapore (who will eventually become my adopted father) does not have any son and it will be a win-win situation if she can give me to my uncle.   Even though my mom do not like the idea, the financial burden is just too much for her to shoulder alone and she recluntantly agreed for me to be sent to Singapore and be adopted by my uncle.

However, one of the conditions for the adoption is that both parties (my mom and my adopted family) is not supposed to tell me about who my real family is. This is why when I started visiting my relatives in Malaysia almost yearly in my early years before going to Pre-University, I never knew that the aunt and cousins that I will see occasionally in my visits, are actually my mom and brothers.

Why do my mom and Robert chose to come to Singapore in 1983 to reveal the truth to me? Why break the silent after so many years? Well, that was the year that I am 21 years old and considered to have reach the 'independent and matured' stage of a young man's life. However, the other more important reason as stated by my godly and wise brother, Robert, is that he wants me to know that I still have a family back in Malaysia  if and when my parents in Singapore pass away. Robert had been keeping his promise of taking care of my mom and the other older brothers for many years. However, he felt that he had an 'unfinished task' at that time. And that 'unfinished task' is me. Until he 'brings' me back to the family, he has not completely fulfil the promise that he had given to my dad on the day when my dad went back to the Lord.

When my mom and Robert relate all these family history to me in that hotel lobby, I really do not know how to react.  I don't remember having any emotional outburst like one might see in the movie. I can't even remember if we did go for a dinner after that serious talk. Maybe we did? Maybe we did not? I think my mom and brother did visit my adopted parents before they went back home to Malaysia.

I remembered that there was even more tension in my family for awhile after my mom and Robert went back to Malaysia. Eventually, I have to assure my adopted parents that I will never leave them in Singapore and go back to my biological family in Malaysia.

As I look back at this reunion, I want to thank my brother, Robert Ng, for keeping his promise to my dad and came looking for me in Singapore. This action of his is part of the plan that our Heavenly Father had orchestrated to let me know I had my family that will stand with me when I encounter some major relationship setback a few years later.

It is also a beginning of a long journey of inner healing of my emotion in the years to come. My lack of emotional outburst or expression spoke alot of where I stand as far as emotional well-being is all about. And I had also recall that in those years as Christian, I had never been calling God as my Heavenly Father. This is probably because of the lack of a healthy father figure in my life from a very young age.

But, He has never forgotten me. And He started to bring me through a series of healing stretching over some years where eventually calling Him as Father become so natural even though I will be walking to a very dark period of my life a few years later.