Through  time and distance, Grace Seah remembers and pays tribute to her grandparents buried in Bukit Brown. 

 “To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without root”

(Chinese proverb)

As a young girl, I remember accompanying my parents to Bukit Brown Cemetery to pay respects to my late grandparents every Qing Ming.  It was always an exciting time for me, folding the paper money into boat shapes, helping to trim the overgrown vegetation around the tombs, sweeping the surrounds and running around admiring the neighbouring tombs.

As the years went by, I gradually stopped attending to this annual ritual and left it entirely to my parents to do their filial duty on their own. My life took on a momentum of its own that left me with hardly any time to think about my ancestry and heritage and old traditions of my childhood. In time, I moved to another country to set up home there with my own family.

With the sense of loss I felt during the first few years of settling into my adopted country, there was renewed impetus to capture and treasure the precious memories of my Peranakan heritage and family mementos.  The one memory I had of my grandparents was this beautiful old photo taken around the year 1934. It shows my paternal grandparents with my father, their youngest son and his 2 elder brothers.

I never grew up knowing my Mama and Kong Kong as they passed from this world before I could remember much. However, I have always felt particularly drawn to them through this photo. It was as if they were always smiling at me.  I grew to love this special family photo with all my heart.

Tan Family circa 1934 (Family album of Grace Seah)

In this family photo are:

The matriarch and patriarch are my paternal grandparents. Both were buried in Bukit Brown. My father is the youngest boy in the picture. The dapper young gentleman in the black suit is his 2nd brother Tan Kim Teck and my 3rd uncle Tan Kim Cheng is in the middle. In those days daughters were not part of the family photos. One of my dad’s sisters Tan Imm Neo eventually married Cheang Theam Chu, son of Cheang Jim Chuan and grandson of Cheang Hong Lim.

My grandparents came from humble backgrounds but worked hard to raise a large family in the Peranakan tradition of those times.  My grandfather passed away in 1946 and my grandmother single-handedly presided as the matriarch in the family until her death in 1964.

Through a  series of coincidences and unexpected events, I was one day led to the amazing work being done by the Bukit Brown community to preserve the heritage that is Bukit Brown.  Suddenly memories of all that I loved about Bukit Brown and memories of visits to my grandparents graves came rushing back at such a speed that it left me breathless. For reasons that only God and the Universe understand, I was given this one last chance to help locate the tombs of my grandparents before the government deadline of 31 Dec 2012.

Grandfather Tan Keng Kiat’s tomb (Photo: Khoo Ee Hoon)

Grandmother Chan Gin Neo’s tomb (Photo: Khoo Ee Hoon)

It was a family photo that started the chain of events identifying my grandparents’ tombs. It was an unbelievable feeling when I finally reconnected with them. My 88-year-old father was also pleasantly surprised with the discovery, as with age, he had himself lost touch with his parents’ graves at BB.

I would like to think that Mama & Kong Kong had a hand in making all this happen.  Who would have thought that this beautiful family photograph would be the key to ensuring that their earthly remains will finally be laid to rest permanently amongst the others, in a special place, never to be forgotten again.

Editors note : The tombs of Tan Keng Kiat and Chan Gin Neo are staked and will have to be exhumed  to make way for the eight-lane highway. When Grace Seah posted a request on the Facebook page to help find their tombs, the response was near instantaneous, as Brownie Ee Hoon had remembered taking photos of the tombs and noting its unique features.