#675; Goodbye
I remember in 2004, I was really stressed over exams and I was whining to you how much I missed softball. You went to your van and dug this out and gave it to me and said "Err this one catcher's mitt ah, but nevermind better than nothing. Keep this and you'll never miss softball again"
I'll always remember you for the hilarious ways you punished me and Zab for all the silly things we did during training. Like how the two of us always plucked grass when you were lecturing us, and how you always caught us and threw a ball at us to get our attention. Then you would always make us put all the grass we plucked in our pockets and caps for the rest of the training. It itched. LIKE HELL. And then there was once when Zab and I acted like the biggest fucks of the team while taking breaks. We always sat on the tables benches, gulping down the iced water while everyone else stood. You'd scream across the field "OI YOU TWO PRINCESSESS, tables not for you to sit hor!" and then you made us carry a chair each and run laps around the field until we were dead tired. Also the times when you corrected my batting techniques by screaming "EH don't chicken wing ah, you want to smell armpit is it?"
I remember how you always frowned over your phone and grumbled to yourself cos you couldn't figure it out. And how you would always ask one of us to help you reply to an sms cos the words were too small. Sometimes you would call me by accident (it happened quite often, in fact!) on your phone and went "Hello? HELLO?!?! Eh sorry sorry who is this CLARE AH EH HELLO HOW ARE YOU" and then the conversation would go on for another few minutes where you grumbled over other things and then realised that you were supposed to do something else and then hang up in a hurry. I'm glad I picked up the last call you made to me. You wished me all the best for my exams and told me to belanja you to coffee when I was done. I'll let the big guy up there take care of that for now :)
When I was relief-teaching in 2008, I went down to the girls' training to say hi to you. It was heart-warming that you recognized me after I went through all that change. We sat down at the benches again while the girls were doing their drills and you started telling me about how things were in your life. You looked so frail, so thin, yet you wore that smile on your face so well. You are truly a hero, Uncle Michael, for being so strong. You will always remain an inspiration to many.
You believed that the awkward, fat Clare of 2002 was a good player and you drilled and trained me back then to become better. (In spite of what the teachers in-charge were saying)
You never gave up on the team (regardless of how sucky we were sometimes haha).
Rest in peace, Michael Chiam. ♥