A Home That Stays With You - at Jalan Greja kampong

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A home is not simply a place you stay. It is a place that stays with you.

For Marhamah Sapandi and Saadiah Ahmad, and their families, seeing this 1987 photograph taken by their granduncle Tok Noh, affectionally called ‘Atok’ by family - who revisited their former house to witness this demolition (the late Tok Noh would cycle over after Friday prayers each week despite having moved away)  - felt like watching a chapter of their lives being unstitched before their very eyes.

The places where sunlight once fell into their rooms, the corners and sitting areas where they rested and dreamed, the kitchen where the aroma of meals cooked over gas stoves with tanks from Chop Bun Siong drifted through the air, the garden and open spaces where children played and laughed, the evenings when hush and stillness made everyone feel safe - all these carried the imprints of decades of memory that now yielded to a quiet kind of grief.

Yes, the families - and all those from Jalan Greja and the surrounding kampong areas - had since moved into new HDB dwellings under the government’s relocation programme. Yet watching one’s house being torn down can stir a strange mix of emotions: sadness, disbelief, disorientation - a reminder that time moves forward whether we are ready or not.

But the truth is this: the houses may be gone, yet what they held for each family remains intact. Moments lived, emotions felt, and milestones shared are not tied to timber or tile. They continue to live within each person who once called the kampongs of Bedok and its surrounds home.

What an honour it has been for all of us to have lived here. Thank you, Marhamah, for sharing this photo — and for reminding us that memory, like home, never truly leaves.




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