On Aug 17, 2025, Sacred Heart Cathedral organised the wedding anniversaries for its couples with talks and Wedding Anniversary Mass. It was a grand occasion. We were there as participants. Then just out of nowhere, my thoughts flew to those who had lost their spouse. Suddenly it dawns on me that this celebration did not include them or rather this group of people felt out of place if they were there. Have we forgotten them? While we like wedding anniversaries, perhaps we need to look into those who had lost their better halves and acknowledge their value and dignity for who they truly are and not who they were because of their spouses.
Talking about this, I want to take this opportunity to honour my mum who passed away last September 2024 at the age of 92. She became a widow at the age of 37. All my siblings were very young then, ranging from three years to 15 years when my father passed away. I remember the drastic change in the life of my mum. Being a young widow in her thirties, her plight was complex and multifaceted, encompassing social, economic, and psychological challenges. Having six children to take care of all alone was a huge task. Being a housewife all along, she felt a total loss in direction, empty, and went through immerse turmoil as to where she should begin. All the sudden she was the breadwinner, taking care of six school going children. Mind you in those days, we had to pay school fees to go to school.
I remembered the ordeal my mum and us went through. A few weeks after my father’s passing while we were still mourning, my father’s partner in business, came to our house. They claimed that my father owed them money and wanted to take our house which was built by my father. To settle those claims, ignorantly my mum gave up the shares in the company founded by my father. Later we found out that those claims were not supported. Just because my mum was ignorant of my father’s business, these so-called friends of my father took the opportunity to cheat my mum. Thank God that they did not take the roof over our head or else we would be living in the street. My mum did all she could to protect the house left by my father. My relatives fled from us. They were afraid that we might borrow money from them.
For three years my mum mourned the loss of my father. I still remember how she ventured into all sorts of small businesses to feed the family. She would get up 3 am in the morning to make soyabean milk for sale, kueh, pau, even slaughter chickens and ducks for our neighbour for mere RM0.50. She planted vegetables, rear chickens, and ducks for self-consumption and even rear pigs for sell. All of us children had to work very hard alongside with her to support the family. Although we were poor, I am proud to say that there was never a day, we went hungry, and we never borrowed any money from anyone. My mother also made sure that all of us studied hard and achieved my father’s wishes. He wanted all of us to be university graduates. That was the only way, we can come out of poverty according to him. Again, I am proud to say that with God’s providence, all of us managed to get scholarships and fulfilled the wishes of our parents.
Read full story in Catholic Sabah Vol 68 No 20 dated Oct 19 2025.
