Having emigrated and then returned, downsizing to the bare essentials in the process, I don't have many treasured possessions. But the one thing that has stayed with me – and travelled to Canada and back – is a carved wooden box from Singapore. It's not even as big as a shoe box, and is broken and battered, but I love it because it belonged to my grandfather. I never met him; he died when my father was a small child but by all accounts, he was a kind and gentle man. He looks it in the photos I have. In one, he's sitting in a rattan chair in the tropical garden of the house he lived in; in another, he's with his wife and three children. He's handsome and has…
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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 2022