When Reunion Feels Different: Grief, Loss and Chinese New Year in Singapore
Reunion dinner.
Round table.
Steam rising from the hotpot.
Too much food. Too many aunties.
Everyone home.
The reunion dinner goes back a long way.
Long ago, families would return before the new year to stay close, to get through the last stretch of winter together, to mark survival.
团圆饭 wasn’t just a meal.
It was a headcount.
Everyone is here.
Everyone accounted for.
A ritual of presence.
Eight years ago, just three days before reunion dinner, my mum passed away.
And with both my parents gone, there is always an undercurrent, reunion has changed meaning for me.
It is no longer just coming home.
It is also remembrance.
The meaning of “reunion” lands different when the people you love no longer sit at the table.
For some of us this CNY week,
tradition presses where it hurts.
So when the ritual no longer fits,
do we change the ritual,
or does it change us?
In loss, grief becomes a teacher.
You walk through a door you never asked for.
Yet once you’re through it, you can’t go back.
You see the world with new eyes. Your heart keeps a whisper.
Somehow, you learn to be softer, and stronger at the same time.
If I’m honest, losing my parents is also what brought me here today.
Here, sitting in this small therapy room.
Across from someone else’s loss.
Holding stories of parents, lovers, pets, and borrowed futures.
I did not choose that door.
But it brought me to this work.
And this work, sometimes, feels like another kind of reunion too.
Two humans at a table, saying,
“I’m here, with you.”
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Warmly,
George Chan
This Is How We Heal
George Chan, MCOU, is a Counsellor, Grief Educator and Breathwork Coach who specialises in helping individuals navigate grief and loss through his private practice, This Is How We Heal. With a rich background in theatre and entertainment, George brings creativity and empathy to his work. When he's not in the therapy room, you might find him performing, choreographing, or working on a new production—or spending time with Luna, his Jack Russell Terrier, who doubles as his unofficial co-therapist and production critic.