How I Became An Adopted Child

Every Easter, I would follow my parents to pay our respects to my ancestors at Tze Dor Aum at Sin Ming Road.

As a routine, we would first make our way to the main hall where we pray to the various Buddhas before going inside the columbarium to greet my Great Grandma, Grandparents and small uncle.

Following which, we would go back outside to the communal area to lay out the offerings we had prepared and invite them for a meal.

After assuming they are done with their feast, we would bade our farewells and clear the table for the next family to use before heading to Tai Pei Yuen at Balestier to visit my big uncle and his wife who were also my Godparents.

What I heard from Mum regarding how I became their adopted son still baffles me this very day.

As the story goes, Grandma was awokened one night and blurry eyed, saw my deceased uncle with a girl in the living room. My uncle, who had passed away due to diarrhea when he was a kid told his Mum about this girl he had met downthere and their desire to get married.

After much difficulties, my aunts finally tracked down the girl's surviving family who had also been looking all over for us.

It seems the girl's family has also got the same vision as my Grandma hence, a Yin marriage was promptly arranged for them.

And so, big uncle found himself a lovely bride, Grandma is relieved her eldest son is not lonely down there anymore and everyone lived happily ever after but wait, the story does not end here because that is when I was implicated came into the picture.

Sometime later, Grandma got a dream from uncle that they have no heir and they would have no one to tend to their tombs during Qing Ming.

That got Grandma worked up all over again and at this juncture (like a well-written drama script), entered yours truly, or rather my Mum, who was heavily pregnant with me at that time.

Uncle told Grandma in her dream that the baby in Mum's womb is a boy and that the child (me) would be "the chosen one". I do not think my parents even know the gender of their own baby at that time as ultrascan is probably not yet available in those days.

Needless to say, I automatically 'upgraded' to be their Godson who has, for as long as I could remember, been praying to them since the day I was born.

And that, is my story of how I became an adopted child.