Meet my colleagues who I work with and are part of my journey here in working towards making the lives of older people a little better

(from L to R: Teresa, Lynne, Cat, Sussie, Angela, Agnes and Annie)

I always like older people. I like talking with them and listening to their stories. My own grandparents died when I was very young. Since that time, I have adopted my friend's grandparents and even those I only met in the course of my work. I call them grandpa and grandma (or amah). And it always bring tears to my eyes when I look at them, so beautiful and so serene and so happy in their golden years.

I guess I digress for a bit there, but I wanted to establish and I guess to find a more meaningful reason for my joining a foundation that works with older people here in Singapore. I have been with this same organization for the past five years and six months. And I must say it is partly the people I work with, my colleagues and my co-'tsaoettes' (how we call ourselves here) that has made my stay and my working life with the foundation both a challenge and fun. Someone dear to my heart is right in one thing. We do love to eat and to drink tea together! At every opportunity and without any reason to celebrate, we find a way to eat together and laugh together.

Today, we had a good reason to go out and have lunch. Well not to try out the Vietnamese restaurant in Suntec but because we wanted to treat our dear Cathryn to lunch and to give our farewell gift. We were almost complete (well our two bosses were not around and two others could not make it), but the fellowship during lunch was great. We had so much fun trying out Vietnamese food. And of course we had to finish it off with tea (for me with siutay or 'less sugar' please...) and coffee for them.

To our dear Cathryn, thanks for your sweet words to all of us today, for reminding us to stop and pause for a while and to stay happy. We wish you all those things as well and we look forward to hearing of your new appointment as a 'pastress?!' (a term that a colleague asked her if that is how you call a woman pastor). It was a good way to end the day, with all of us laughing together as one united and happy team.