I Swear You Will Be Fine

I have waited for months to write about this. And I had to wait because I was afraid to write anything before the case was closed.

IO W was the Investigative Officer (IO) assigned to your case. A short while after the police and paramedics arrived at our home that night, one of the police officers came to me and said an IO had to be involved. In my mind, I thought to myself, “whatever”. Minutes later, he came to me again, and said “The IO has arrived”. Despite just witnessing the worst tragedy of my life, I thought to myself, “is he expecting me to welcome him at the door or something?”. I stayed put on the sofa.

And then, I was introduced to IO W. In days and months to come, IO W would provide us much needed comic relief. I wonder Josh, if this was part of your plans. To provide us with some laughter in the worst possible time of our lives.

I don’t recall the initial introduction to IO W. But he kind of looked at me like I should be standing up to greet him. I didn’t. What followed over the next 3 hours were some of the weirdest questions. Of course some were expected. How I found you. Who was at home. What I did. Etc etc. But the same questions were asked repeatedly, making us even more upset. And most of the questions were targeted to me. He also wanted email exchanges between Dr A and me, which I gave him. 30 minutes later, he asked for it again. That was the first time I raised my voice slightly, “Didn’t I just give it to you?”. And he backed off just a tad.

I recall at one point he came to me and said, “why you never send IMH ah?”. I can’t even remember how I answered. Even Tun was getting angry and was about to tell him off saying “she’s the mother of the child”. He showed no sympathy whatsoever. And was mainly accusatory. Eventually Jess couldn’t take it any longer and told him to direct his questions to her.

IO W later said they would need your phone and laptop. He asked for the passwords. I didn’t know them. I told him you rarely used your laptop other than for school. And most of the time you used your desktop. But he appeared to not hear me. I later thought maybe it was too cumbersome for them to remove your desktop. 

After what seemed like ages, he left, but not before telling us we would need to come down to the police station to give our statements. That will be part 2.

Days later when I was replaying the scene in my head, I was thinking of you watching the whole scene unfold from above. You would have probably said, “what a dickhead”. And there would have been numerous seconds of rolling your eyes.

Perhaps the most disappointing part of IO W and the SCDF/ Police, was that there was never any referral to a support group or counselling. It’s ok for us. Within days, close friends sent me details of various support groups, counsellors, similar grief stories and books. But not everyone would have had this type of support. I expected more from Singapore. Perhaps a letter to the Minister of Home Affairs is long overdue. You’re probably saying to me, “Just leave it Mum”, as you so frequently say.

More to come in Part 2 !

Love you darling,

Mum