She didn’t want to go out. She avoided meeting up with friends. Apart from going to work and church, most of her days were spent watching dramas online and binge eating.

“Food was a comfort and I gained a lot of weight.”

Colours disappeared from her wardrobe and she started dressing only in black, blue and grey.

“There was no other way I could cope apart from these things. I just wasn’t interested in things anymore and I wasn’t the same person. I lost my smile. It was eating me up inside,” said Alicia Lim, 38.

Alicia with her father in happier times.

Three years after she lost her father, Alicia found herself still grief-stricken.

Her husband offered comfort and a listening ear, encouraging her to go for walks in the park or do grocery runs. But he would soon be going through a tough time himself. His mother, who had been ill for quite a while, would eventually pass away in 2021.

“Because of Covid, we didn’t get to spend much time with her. He was going through a hard time emotionally but I couldn’t support him much.”

Alicia knew she needed help. She just didn’t know from whom or how.

Then she chanced upon a Salt&Light Instagram post about a woman, Joan Swee, who had started a grief recovery consultancy. Alicia was intrigued.

But it was only months later in 2022 that she picked up the courage to contact Joan. The conversation that followed led to her finally emerging from the dark cloud of grief.

Unexpected news

Alicia’s father was a family man. No matter how busy he was at work, he would always carve out time every weekend for the family.

He was also the one who cared for his parents the most although he had five other siblings and was not the oldest son.

Alicia’s father at the last family holiday in South Korea before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

When he was 58, he retired. The children had grown up and he was looking forward to spending his sunset years with his wife.  

Then on his birthday in June 2018, Alicia noticed her father looked jaundiced. He seemed tired and weak.

“I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks because I had been travelling for work. I asked my mother about him and she said that he had been like this for a while.” 

They persuaded him to see a doctor. Within a matter of weeks, the diagnosis came – Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Her father was not expected to live past a year.

“My dad had the healthiest lifestyle among all of us. He jogged regularly and didn’t eat fried food. Fish soup was his favourite dish. He was the one who would nag at us to eat healthily.

“Where did it come from? No one in the family ever had cancer. I was really taken aback. It took me a long time to process the news.”

The family opted to give chemotherapy a try. After the first round, her father felt better. But mid-way through the second round, he asked to stop treatment. He was “feeling really bad”.

Not why, but what  

The family was Christian. Alicia and her father became Christians when she was in her teens. Their neighbour who had been “intentional in reaching out” had invited them to church and her father had surprised Alicia by agreeing to go. After that, it did not take long for her mother and sister to become Christians.

When he was first stricken with cancer, her father clung to the hope that there would be healing.

“My mum was like, ‘We are going to be positive.’ My father was not in denial. He was just hopeful God would work.”

After the second cycle of treatment was aborted, their prayer was simply that her father would not suffer.

“My father surrendered to God, not because he didn’t want to fight any more, but because he had the peace.”

Alicia had her own faith journey.

“I was questioning God, ‘How did this happen? I don’t know if I can handle this.’

“There was a lot I was going through. The first two years of married life required a lot of adjustment. Then, my dad’s illness happened and I had to be the main support for my mum. Her life revolved around my dad.”

God never gave Alicia the answer she sought. Instead He led her to ask a different question: What did He want her to learn through this?

Gone too soon

By the time he stopped his treatment, Alicia’s father could no longer eat solid food, and was in and out of the hospital. Eventually, he asked to be sent home and was put under palliative care.

“The pain level must have been quite high. But every time I asked him how he was, he would say, ‘Okay.’

“I think God gave him the grace to walk through the last few months in a peaceful way.”

Alicia had always been close to her father.

Alicia had had a good relationship with her father since young.

“My dad was the one who would stay up and wait for us to come home. He never got angry even if we stayed out late and came home past our curfew.”

In the last days of his life, her father had to be hospitalised. The family took turns to be with him round the clock. Alicia and her husband took the night shift. The couple was on their way to spend the night with him when they received the call they never wanted.

“My aunt, my father’s sister said, ‘Daddy is no more. You need to come to the hospital.’”

Her parents were together in those last moments.

“My mum asked him, ‘Are you ready to see Jesus?’ Dad was like, ‘Yep, I’m ready to meet God.’

“He was very peaceful when he passed away.”

When Alicia arrived at the hospital, she was given a few minutes to be alone with her father.

“My dad’s biggest concern was my mum and my sis because I’m married and my husband will be here for me.

“So I reassured him that I would take care of mummy and Mei Mei (younger sister).”

Alicia’s father passed away in 2019, eight months after he was diagnosed. He was 61.

Hope in the midst of grief

Alicia was heartbroken.

“It was really hard that night to go home knowing that my dad was no longer with us.”

But she chose to return to the rhythm of everyday life soon after the funeral. She did not dare to “sit down and have a quiet moment to just think”.

On the first anniversary of his death, the family went to Changi Beach because her father had had a sea burial.

Alicia’s father had always loved the sea. That was why the family chose to give him a sea burial.

“He had always dreamt of going on a cruise when he retired, but never did. The cost was one thing and the other was that no one wanted to go with him.”

As they each remembered Alicia’s father, Alicia wept.

“I cried so much. I was so embarrassed because it was a public space. I felt like if Year 1 was so hard, how about Year 3 or Year 4?”

As time passed, the pain of the loss remained as intense as ever.

Everything was a trigger for Alicia, from hawker centre meals because her father had enjoyed meepok (noodles), to Father’s Day and Chinese New Year.

Alicia’s husband and mentors were supportive. But she felt she was “in the wilderness just circling and going through things but going nowhere”.

“I felt like God really hung on to me at that time but I didn’t really know when all this would end.”

Alicia with her husband David Teo and her father.

The end came in a way Alicia never quite expected.

Close to three years after her father passed away, she saw a Salt&Light Instagram post about Joan Swee and the grief recovery consultancy Whispering Hope that Joan had started. Alicia signed up for the programme in 2022.

“It was like a divine appointment set up by God. After the first session, I felt a breakthrough. I had a safe space to cry.

“I was reassured that my emotional struggle and grief were normal and natural. It was then that I realised I had a lot of misconceptions about grief.”

Being given the permission to grieve was a huge relief for Alicia as was the opportunity to process her thoughts and emotions, and to talk about them.

“I didn’t know what was an okay length of time to grieve. And I never really talked about it.”

At the final session, she had to do an activity which proved cathartic.

“It wasn’t about closing the case on my dad and my grief. It was about being emotionally complete, completing what I didn’t do or say. I had so many regrets, things I wish I had done or said.”

The road back

In the three years that Alicia grappled with her grief, she knew God was with her but could not feel His presence. 

Soon after going through the grief recovery programme, Alicia and her family went for a holiday in Thailand.

They visited a church there that was pastored by her husband’s friend. The service was in Thai and Alicia did not understand a word.

“But as I sat there, I felt the presence of God; it was so strong. I told God, ‘Whatever these people have, I want to have it, too. I hunger in my heart as well.’”

Then, while the service was still going on, a little girl brought Alicia a cup of water and left without a word.

“I told God, ‘Is this Your answer to what I prayed a few moments ago?’”

Since then at worship services, Alicia has been able to “feel God so close to me”.

“I would tear. I told God, ‘That’s how I connect with You. That’s how I know You are real. Don’t take that away from me.’

“I know I am on a recovery journey. I just feel like somewhere, finally, the desert season is over.”

At the third anniversary of her father’s death, celebration replaced sorrow.

“There weren’t tears. It turned into a happy excursion to Changi beach and another precious family time.

“It became evident how far I had come on this journey.”

On her sixth wedding anniversary, Alicia posted a picture of her father walking her down the aisle in 2016.

When she found healing from her grief, Alicia was finally able to post a photo on social media of her father walking her down the aisle.

“Until the grief recovery sessions, I hadn‘t been able to post any photos of my dad on social media since his death. It was too painful and sad to be reminded of him in that way.

“I now know that grief recovery is possible. The memories of my dad do not have to evoke tears and sadness. They can be happy and fond memories.”

Those struggling with grief can contact Whispering Hope here for a free 30-minute phone consult. 

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