9 days more to go. This is a very special photograph to me. The house in the background is my old house which we lived in for 20 years from 1995 to 2005. The new owner decided to take down the house to build their dream home. From time to time since I moved out, I would go make a detour to drive past this house to just have a good stare at it. I felt as though I had left a big part of me there and forgot to pack it. One day, I did my detour and realised that they had started to demolish the house. I stopped my car, sat there for quite a while in shock, watching them slowly take down part by part of the house. The light fixtures still hanging in their respective rooms, I could see the staircase that I used to run up and down, The living room which I would watch countless hours of telly in, my heart sank. Where did all the glass panes which we had spent hours cleaning, the doors that we would slam in anger, the balcony that hung over the our front patio, where did all that go? Part of me wanted to stop them, the other part of me had already resigned to fate. Then I decided to get down and take photos of what was left, and this is the one that I took with my car in the foreground.
After this had happened, I would still occasionally drive past just to see what had been done. The mango trees had disappeared one by one, the lawn we used to play on was gone and in its place was dirt and machinery. In a year's time, a new house had replaced my old house. Something I could not relate to or make myself to like. I had even broken into the place before a gate was put up (just before it was done), from the inside, I was lost. I stood where my room would have been, stared out of the window, I recognised the view but not the room. It was strange and foreign.
3 comments:
My name is Jeffrey Hoh. This house that you once stayed was our home too. I was born here in 1968 and sold the house to our neighbor in 1994 or 1995. I think it's your family that bought our old place. I do share the same sentiment and emotional attachment towards this place as i did the same thing like you driving pass it many times. My childhood was here at No.43 and i used to climb that mango tree you mentioned. We used to have rambutan and coconut tree too. Behind the house there use to have a high fence or slope dividing us from the factory. I miss this place very very much, it's everything that we have to remember.
Thank you for writing this blog,let's treasure this memory till end of time.
this is where i stayed when i was young......i mean really young.....
and jeffery hoh is my cousin........zzzzzz what a coincidence
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