Beach Day

It is Father’s Day week­end and this morn­ing as I sit in front of my par­ent-in-laws urns, my mem­o­ries of them begin to pour in.

I remem­ber the sum­mer when Cameron was about 2, we decid­ed to go to the beach with my in-laws.  It was the first time I had got­ten a glimpse of what their lives were like grow­ing up in Penang.  They told me that a group of them would often pile on into a car and go to the beach at Batu Fer­ren­gi and hang out there for the day. 

I saw in my mind’s eye a pic­ture of Wil’s dad hold­ing on to a fish­ing rod at the beach.  Recent­ly, we were hav­ing dim sum and that pic­ture came into my mind and I had to stop myself to ask him if there was such a pic­ture and he con­firmed.  He was in high school then, around Cameron’s age now.

I still remem­ber the smile and pure joy it res­onat­ed and how it still makes me feel today.  I do think that was the soul and spir­it clear­ly revealed on pho­to­graph.  Then, of course life hap­pened with all its up and downs and turns. At the end, I saw his joy when he met with us and saw his grand­kids.  He didn’t need fan­cy clothes and pos­ses­sions.  His joy and qui­et con­tent­ment for life as it was was pal­pa­ble.  He nev­er real­ly com­plained except for pol­i­tics.  I hope my kids will grow up to have this spe­cial qual­i­ty and to live life sim­ply but with joy in their laugh­ter and con­tent­ment for life.