The Inevitability of Change

When Nick returns to Singapore for the first time in many years when he visits his dying grandmother, he realizes with horror how much the landscape has changed. People have grown older. Landmarks that Nick enjoyed are no longer there. It is because of the change that Nick sees in his homeland that he decides that he cannot let his childhood home be sold. Even though he manages to save the house, change still comes but Nick realizes that some changes are for good.

Nick is first shocked by how much older his grandmother looks and how much time he has lost with her. When he enters her bedroom: “Nick was shocked for a moment to see how tiny and frail his grandmother looked in the middle of her hospital bed, the machines clustered around her like an army of invading robots. It...