Saturday 11 July 2015

In Loving Memory of Ms Yeap Gaik Khoon

UPDATE: Memorial service for Miss Yeap Gaik Khoon on Sat, 1 Aug 2015 at 4pm, Jalan Gasing Gospel Hall. 

I'd like to encourage all BBGSians who grew up under Miss Yeap's watch to make a donation to the ECEF.  Please tag your donation "In Memory of Ms Yeap Gaik Khoon" so that the administrators can keep track of the funds and announce the collective amount. I will start the ball rolling with a donation of RM5000 today. 

Details of donations to ECEF a can be found here:
http://bbgs.com.my/elena-cooke-education-fund/ 

In loving memory of Ms Yeap Gaik Khoon, Headmistress of BBGS from 1980 - 1993, who passed away on Saturday 11 July 2015.


"O Captain! My Captain! Rise up and hear the bells
Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the shores a-crowding
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning"


- Walt Whitman


I read this poem as a tribute during Ms Yeap's retirement dinner in 1993.  It seems appropriate to share it once again in memory of a loving woman who was my teacher, my headmistress, my cheerleader, my mentor, my friend.

The memory of her sitting down to cry together with me over my SPM results will forever be etched in my memory.  It was a simple act of kindness that made me realise that she was not only an authority figure, she was my friend.

Thank you Miss Yeap, and Farewell.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Every year I would go and show her the songs that the choir would sing. On my final year, for the song One Voice, She gave permission for every choir member to light a candle. I was thrilled. As I was leaving her office, her parting words to me were "please don't burn the hall down"

The Patersons said...

She was firm but fair. How she remembered all our names, I'll never know! "Michelle, your hair is so messy!" It still is, Miss Yeap!
One story she frequently relayed to us was telling of her heart - about a lonely Form 2 girl who cried in her office - Miss Yeap exhorted us to care for each other. I wonder did she look at us, self absorbed teenagers, distracted by the fleeting joys of young life, and think her words were unheeded. Never so, dear lady.

For while we may have surrendered to some inevitable inclinations, like messy hair and chatterbox spirits, the deeper lessons are etched in our hearts, they are entwined in our beings.

What a legacy, may you reap your reward in heaven.

Bless you.
Michelle, Class of 1975

Suji said...

I remember her each time I tell someone "well done" because that is what she always said in response to a deed well done. I remember her every time I hug my dog because she loved dogs too and we would actually trade dog stories in her office. I remember her with so much happiness, sadness, nostalgia and respect. RIP my dear Ms Yeap. I will always remember you.

Suji (Upper 6, 1992)