Jesse Sng - Senior Pastor at the Maranatha Baptist Church - has kindly given me permission to reproduce his account of Mr Lau's cremation service today.
(his post is reproduced in full, and was originally posted at this Facebook page)
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The Scene at Mandai
Roy Cheong and I arrived just when everyone was singing "Amazing Grace". There was a brief prayer as we committed his body and we quickly proceeded to move to the viewing gallery while his casket was being prepared.
We sang the School Anthem twice while we were at Mandai. The first occurred spontaneously as we walked solemnly from the Hall to the Viewing Gallery. We sang with pride, proud to have been associated and identified with this man and our beloved school.
We stood there in silence, waiting and watching for the casket to appear in Mr. Lau's silent and solitary journey. We stood there feeling helpless at the thought that none of us could accompany him in this final journey. The silence was punctuated at times with subdued sobs and futile attempts to hold back the tears.
Then everyone in the room perked up as we caught a glimpse of his casket, now almost bare in its simplicity and stripped of the ACS and BB colours that adorned it just minutes ago. As his casket began its final march, voices broke the silence as we sang the opening bars of the school anthem.
The second time around, it started slow and majestically, rising every once in a while in volume until the whole room resonated with our voices. We sang it loudly and with gusto, we sang it the Earnest Lau way, the way he had taught us to sing. As the robotic device transported his casket, we ushered it in its slow march down that empty room with every purposeful line of the anthem.
With every stanza and chorus, tears flowed freely down the cheeks of grown men but we resolved in our hearts to finish the task with gusto, pride and dignity. Personally I found it hard to finish the lines "we'll stand together for the cause…." and found my voice breaking each time with deep emotion and conviction.
I recalled one lady standing next to us turning later to tell us that we all sang well. I replied "that's how HE had taught us to sing!" and added that "we're ACS boys, every line and word of this song has been etched permanently in our memory. We'll never forget it".
It was definitely the best rendition of our beloved school anthem ever. It says a lot also that after 30 years or more, every word and line was still etched into our memories.
We had a good time of fellowship later, renewing old ties and making new friends while feeling as if we've known each other all our lives.
Earnest Lau moulded us in life, may he in his death bring many of us together.
We kicked the idea around that with every Founder's Day, that we should commemorate it by changing our Facebook profile pictures to the school crest. It was amazing to see so many school crests all over Facebook during the last few days.
Well done everyone, keep this group growing. There's more to come and some of us are just starting to get some ideas going here.