En Bloc Party

The rumours had been going round, but my father refused to believe them. Even when our MP dropped by during a house-to-house visit, my father felt it was nothing more than an exercise in public relations.

Now, he can't believe his luck.

I came home from a long day of job admission tests and exam revision today to find him beaming like a 12-year old with a new toy. It's true; our precinct has been selected for en bloc redevelopment. Come 2010, we will vacate our decades-old 5-room HDB flat for a spanking new 3, 4 or 5-room residence in a 40-storey HDB block just across the street from where we live.

We are getting a very good deal: normally, people affected by en bloc developments are arbitrarily relocated in a different housing estate. Here, we'll not only get to stay put as our new castles rise just outside our windows; our lease will be renewed as well. We'll also receive handsome monetary compensation for our pains, and by the time the project is completed, the neighbourhood will have a new mall and a circle line MRT station to boot.

Such redevelopments aren't a big deal in the scheme of things, but this one is especially meaningful to my parents, who are getting on in their years. Suffice it to say they are simple, long-suffering folk who have no bigger goal in their twilight of their lives than to remain healthy and support their children and prospective grandchildren in whatever little ways they can.

I've long wished I could do something significant for my parents: perhaps that New Zealand holiday they've ill-afforded for the last twenty years; maybe a renovation of our crumbling, leaky, ant-and-centipede-infested apartment...a realisation of dreams they left behind a long, long time ago for a life of quiet regret and resignation.

With our belts tightening and I forgoing my postgraduate aspirations to work and put something back my parents' nest egg, this redevelopment package is a godsend. Not only will it give my father the CPF savings he never had, it will also give him the brand new retirement home he always wanted. More importantly, it will give my parents what I feel is the ultimate gift: the chance to spend the last years of their lives with grace and dignity.

I can picture my father six years from now, all of 70 years of age, closer to heaven both literally and figuratively, looking serenely out his room window and down on the world far below. I see him smiling as he imagines, for a brief moment, that everything around him was planned for; that all he sees is the natural conclusion of a rich, accomplished life.