JOANNE’S LETTER

REPAIRED BY LIM ZEHERNG

@ZEHERNG

—

—

An excerpt from the Repair + publication :

To Her Whom It Concerned

“The 1990s were a terribly stressful time for Joanne. Her daughter was born with a hole in her heart, an undeveloped stomach, and without an anus. Escaping death, her daughter stayed three months in the children's Intensive Care Unit, and needed frequent hospital admissions. Her husband had been working two jobs to pay for their daughter's medical fees when he had a fatal accident. An accumulated debt of $200,000 in medical fees left her with no money to pay for a coffin or to hire lawyers for his compensation. She was unable to complete her confinement going back and forth from the hospital. To add to all that, her father had cancer and died six months later. Many people chided her back then, asking why she wasn’t crying. It was not because she was unfeeling, but crying was not going to solve her problems. She was only 20 years old at the time. Thirty-five years on, her daughter is married with two children, and still worries for her health and her children's future. Joanne's heart still aches when she looks at this letter. She wants to keep this letter for her daughter’s children who are still young and would not understand until they have families of their own.”

(Article written by Claire Ooi)

—

f i r s t i m p r e s s i o n s / / t h e e x c h a n g e

R e u n i o n / / R E V E A L

T H E R E T U R N / / R E P A I R E D