Sleeping with the Rats and Cockroaches

The Quiet Pillar: Shadows and Sacrifices

The Man Who Slept with Rats

In 1976, after our family's shoe shop was robbed, my father quietly stepped into the role of a shadow. To protect our livelihood, he chose to spend his nights as the shop’s watchman. For three long years, the tiny, cramped shop became his bedroom. There was no air conditioning, only a small fan that hummed fruitlessly against the thick Singapore humidity.

His "bed" was nothing more than a few rough wooden planks exactly the size of his body. He wasn't alone in the dark; he shared that space with cockroaches and rats that scurried across the floor, while the outside air was filled with the sounds of stray dogs and cats fighting through the night. This was his reality for over a thousand nights.

Every morning, as we opened the shop for business, he would emerge, weary and hollow-eyed, to head to our shophouse's bed across the road for some rest. I remember the whispers from neighbors and customers: "Why does he let his wife run the shop while he goes off to sleep?". To the world, he looked lazy. Because he didn’t handle the suppliers or lead the negotiations, he was judged as irresponsible or weak.

In truth, he was simply staying out of the way. He stayed in the background, doing the grueling manual labor that no one else wanted to touch, allowing my mother and my 2nd sister the space to run the shoe shop in their own way.

Even at the dinner table, he remained in the background, always the last to eat. If there was food that was starting to turn or scraps we were ready to throw away, he would insist on finishing them himself. He lived on our leftovers: both our food and our attention.

We often talk about profits and cash flow, but we rarely talk about the invisible foundation they are built upon. Without his three years of sacrificed sleep and surrendered dignity, our "roaring" shoe business might not have survived.

Looking back from 2026, I realize that true Love Intelligence isn't found in a textbook; it’s the ability to see the "invisible costs" someone else is paying for your success. It is the "Global Perspective" that looks past the surface, past the man sleeping in the morning, to see the man who guarded the door all night.

Did we ever formally thank him? I don't think we did. My hope in writing this is that we learn to express that gratitude now, so that I, at least, will never forget.

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This is the fourth in a series of articles dedicated to honoring my late father.
Other 3 articles:

1. The 4D Big Punter https://andyngtrainer.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-secret-under-mattress-why-would-79.html 

2. Fight between Ch 8 and U https://andyngtrainer.blogspot.com/2026/05/fierce-battle-channel-8-vs-channel-u.html 

3. Head Bleeds when Chair falls https://andyngtrainer.blogspot.com/2026/05/head-bleeding-when-chair-falls.html