https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/reflections-from-a-columbarium-tour-with-my-mother
2025-09-07
By--- Ho Ai Li is assistant foreign editor at The Straits Times, helping to oversee its coverage of East Asia. She also writes columns on culture and heritage.
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Inside a small auditorium, my mother and I are seated at a white plastic table poring over the details of what the different packages would entail.
The three-day, two-night package does not include a buffet, the saleswoman advises us. Decide on a package and we can lock in the price against inflation, she tells us.
It was surreal: My mother and I were not weighing up holiday tours, but her future funeral.
Pantang, did I hear you say?
I had thought so too. I had assumed that my 69-year-old mother, who consults an almanac to check the colour of the clothes she should be wearing for the day, would find it taboo to talk about end-of-life matters.
But my assumption was turned on its head a few weeks ago when she sent me a voice message to ask if I was free to accompany her on a tour.
I have been encouraging her to go for overseas holidays now that she has retired from her cashier job and has time. She has not travelled overseas in years, for reasons too complicated to go into, including some worries about her wobbly knees.
I would have loved to go with her on a belated and unprecedented mother-and-daughter trip – on one of those residents’ committee durian tours, a jaunt to Batam or better still, a tour to Malacca with artistes from Emerald Hill – The Little Nyonya Story. But no, my mother had signed up for a Nirvana Cultural Tour, which sounds like a Buddhist pilgrimage.
It was actually a day tour to Nirvana Memorial Garden, situated at Old Choa Chu Kang Road and facing the Muslim cemetery. Yes, a tour of a columbarium, which includes two-way transport, vegetarian lunch and a pit stop at a vegetable market.
“It’s free,” my thrifty mother said sheepishly.
I thought to myself, “Aiyo, of course, it’s free. Who would want to go?”
‘Which Li is your Li?’
As it turns out, quite a lot of people do want to go to Nirvana.
The Nirvana tour is organised regularly. There were fewer than 20 participants on my tour as it was a rainy day but the coach, which picked us up from an MRT station, was full on a previous trip, I was told.
On the long bus ride, the guides took turns to introduce themselves, sing songs or tell jokes.
My ears perked up when one of them introduced herself in Mandarin as Ai Li. Gosh, another namesake. I wanted to keep a low profile and tried to signal to my mother to keep mum.
But my friendly mother did not catch my drift. She leaned in and told the woman excitedly that I shared the same name. “Which Li is your Li?” she asked her.
Another guide introduced himself by referencing his dialect nickname, Ah Lek. “Isn’t that what Papa is called too?” I asked my mother. This is a common Hokkien nickname for boys, she explained.
At around 10.30am, we got off at a market at Kok Fah Technology Farm, where a banner told us “Kok Fah Knows Fresh”. My mother and the other seniors made a beeline for the vegetables and fruit.
A weekend market at Kok Fah Technology Farm in Sungei Tengah Road. ST PHOTO: HO AI LI
I saw a man barbecuing otak-otak and bought one each for myself and my mother. But oops, I had forgotten to get one for our tour guide. Knowing my mother, who never fails to offer money to buskers or tissue paper sellers, she would not chide me but would likely offer hers to the guide. And she did.
It struck me then that her instinct is always to give, even in the most unexpected or smallest moments.
‘Nobody would rush to move in’
When our group finally set foot in Nirvana around lunchtime, I found myself rubbing my eyes.
Where was I? For sure, there was nothing spooky or smoky about the place, even though we were there during the Hungry Ghost month.
We were led into a big complex and walked past brightly lit reception areas with antique-like chairs, sculptures and bonsai – the place felt like a posh new condo.
Or a six-star hotel, according to Nirvana’s website, which added that the columbarium “redefines eternity with unparalleled grandeur and artistic splendour”.
According to Nirvana’s website, the columbarium “redefines eternity with unparalleled grandeur and artistic splendour”. ST PHOTO: HO AI LI
Set up here in 2009, Nirvana Memorial Garden Singapore is a private columbarium that offers niches, ancestral tablets and funeral services, among other things. A double niche in Nirvana can cost more than $20,000, according to its website.
My mother and I followed our guide as she took us to rooms with different themes called suites. In one of them, a Buddha idol revolved slowly, not unlike Prima Tower, which took its last spin in 2020.
There were rows and rows of microwave-sized niches in the suites. Besides a space to place urns, some niches come with a “balcony” and “furniture” such as mini armchairs or coffee tables. Imagine the pitch: If you can’t afford a condo in real life, you can get one for the afterlife.
There were rows and rows of Microwave-sized niches in the suites. Besides a space to place urns, some niches come with a “balcony” and “furniture” such as mini arm chairs or coffee tables. ST PHOTO: HO AI LI
The tour was free, but of course there was a catch.
Our group had to sit through a sales pitch, and I helped my mother and another auntie switch their mobile phones to silent mode before the presentation.
The presenter spoke about niches in “new launches” which we could book in advance. There shouldn’t be a delay, he said, in the date of completion for the new facility.
In any case, “nobody would rush to move in”, he joked.
A niche that comes with decorative items and a “balcony” space, offered at Lin San Temple in Geylang, a partner of Nirvana Memorial Garden. ST PHOTO: HO AI LI
My mother seemed unfazed, compared with me, throughout our visit to a place pregnant with reminders of death. As I walked around the place, what seized my attention was not so much its grandeur, but the heartfelt cards and letters that children had penned for their late parents, including a daughter who regretted her rebellious youth.
I could not help but think about how I would miss my mother when she is gone. Sure, she nags, but this is someone who, in her usual considerate way, had reminded me to help a stranger set her phone back to ringing mode when it was easy to forget.
If nothing else, the tour reminded me how easy it is to overlook the everyday gestures of the people closest to us.
Perhaps if we make it a habit to notice these ordinary acts, we might also learn to value one another more – not just after our loved one has left.
I would miss my mother’s kindness and generosity, her stories and how she brings me out of my shell when I am inclined to be quiet.
Our Nirvana tour might not be filled with the pleasures of durian flesh, or speckled with Emerald Hill stardust, but it was nevertheless a trip to remember.
The visit has filled my heart with gratitude and reminded me of the things that I love about my mother.
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Stay stubborn and keep healthy: Lessons from my mother on ageing in place
Ho Ai Li is assistant foreign editor at The Straits Times, helping to oversee its coverage of East Asia. She also writes columns on culture and heritage.
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