It is not easy for a person to penetrate Yolanda’s seemingly cold and proper work exterior to see the truly gentle and kind person she was inside. I was no exception, and it took me a good while to understand the beauty within her—in fact almost thirty years. Our acquaintance started from 1972, we were colleagues at RELC for many years and then friends until the end of her life.

I remember Yolanda in her younger days—a gorgeous beauty with large expressive eyes which could freeze a user when she censured them for some breach of good behaviour or library etiquette. Meticulous, disciplined and organised in her work, she had an eye for detail and a memory that could not be faulted. Yolanda remembered dates, names, faces, past library offenders and their misdemeanours, rules and policies without effort. The combination of faultless memory and flashing eyes made her an awesome figure to those who used the RELC Library.

It is no wonder that under her charge, RELC Library became the best library in language and linguistics with well-stocked and up-to-date materials, drawing from all over the world, researchers and scholars who chose to spend their sabbatical at RELC to carry out research on Southeast Asian linguistics and TESL. RELC became a highly-regarded centre for applied linguistics and language learning in the 1970s and 1980s, and Yolanda, in creating the magnificent collection of books and materials, was responsible in as much as RELC Director, Mrs Tai Yu Lin, and the language specialists for developing RELC into an institution known for its excellent library resources, training programmes and language conferences for key language personnel within the SEAMEO region.

Our friendship grew slowly – perhaps we became familiar with each other’s ways and foibles over the years. It is strange how common misfortune throws unlikely people together. In 1985, when the winds of change gave RELC a new administration, both of us, being long-serving, shared a common basis of understanding as to which policies would be detrimental and which would be workable for our institution. Our bond of friendship further deepened when both of us lost our loved ones almost about the same time and experienced a bereavement too deep for words. Yolanda would travel all the way to the church in Katong to attend my husband’s anniversary Mass, sitting quietly by herself at the back.

After our retirement from full-time employment, we would meet for lunch now and then, especially near our birthdays. The last time I saw Yolanda was in the upstairs room of the home of our former boss, Mrs Tai Yu Lin, on the occasion of her birthday. It was also the day Yolanda was to leave for her Holy Land tour. After the birthday song, using my mobile I had snapped a quick picture of Yolanda, standing serenely happy behind the birthday cake she had specially bought for the occasion. Both of us had been singing some old songs from a song sheet I happened to have. Our little tea-party with a small group of friends ended shortly after five o’clock. Yolanda was leaving for the airport at eight to begin her Holy Land tour.

Yolanda and I decided to have lunch after her return but that proved not to be. The news of Yolanda’s death came as a great shock to all her friends. It was as though Yolanda had chosen to remain in the Holy Land permanently. Like her last picture on my mobile I think of Yolanda smiling sweetly always.

Dear Yolanda, may you be in perfect peace and joy among the company of angels at the Table of Plenty.

Contributed by Rosemary Khoo