Faced with his son’s late stage cancer diagnosis, this “absent and silent daddy” said ‘I love you’ to his child for the first time, and everything changed

David Cheong came from “an old-fashioned Asian culture where the father is head of the family, and you see your child as someone who should be your subordinate”.

It was also an era where “男人流血,不流泪” (“men would rather bleed than cry”).

David was with his son Damein, then 38, when Damein’s doctor delivered news that would rock their worlds.

Damein had Stage 4 bile duct cancer – a rare and aggressive cancer with no known cure. He was told that he probably had four to six months to live.

“Outside the clinic, I wept,” said David, now 80. “I wept unashamedly on Damein’s shoulder. It was the first time I had done such a thing.”

(Read about Damein’s cancer journey here.)

Damein was given the prognosis on February 21, 2022. Today, four years have passed.

No buddy relationship

“I was both an absent daddy and a silent daddy,” said David of Damein’s growing up years.

David, who works as an electronics design engineer today, admitted: “I was a workaholic. I would leave home quite early for work, and return home late. When I was home, I didn’t speak much to Damein or his older sister.”

His children would “trap themselves in their own rooms”, only emerging during mealtimes.

“There seemed to be an invisible barrier between us. We couldn’t openly talk to each other or even argue with each other,” said David.

Damein as a toddler in his father David’s arms.

“When I thought of expressing my thoughts and emotions, pride got the better of me. I also thought that they might not reciprocate.

“And if I suddenly did it, they would think that I was going senile.”

“How are we going to make up for time lost?”

All this changed when Damein was given only four to six months to live.

David sat outside the clinic wailing for two minutes, his cries echoing into the hallway.

“I told Damein, ‘What have I done to inflict such punishment on my family?’

“He assured me that it wasn’t my fault.

”I didn’t know my son very well, and he didn’t know me well either. And now he was about to be snatched away from me. How was I going to make up for the time we lost since his secondary school days?”

“When the parent looks stern stern, there is no way for the child to know that you love him,” said David of his relationship with Damein (pictured during his army days).

“For the first time, I told my son, ‘I love you’.”

David’s outpouring of emotion “smashed the invisible barrier” between father and son.

“Being able to openly express my emotions for my children has been the most enriching experience of my life,” said David.

“I’ll ask Jesus to heal you”

While crying and hugging his son, David told Damein: “I’ll pray to Jesus and ask Him to heal you.”

This shocked his son.

David, who had been brought up in another faith, had heard about Jesus through Christian colleagues and a Christian boss in his younger days. But he found proselytism rather intrusive, and “shut them down and didn’t accept God”.

Damein and his sister Shermeen (in black) became Christians at age 10 and 17 respectively. They had prayed for three decades for their parents to come to Jesus.

David explains that he wasn’t anti-Christian. He “saw Christianity as a well-documented faith dating back a few thousand years that brings hope to believers in their current situation, and a promise of eternal life for those who believe”.

When he sensed that he was powerless and medical science could not save his son, he cried out to Christ for a miracle.

The idea that Jesus could heal was planted more than 25 years earlier.

A close friend of David used to invite the Cheong family annually to a Christmas event held at the Indoor Stadium. These plays depicted Bible stories of Jesus’ miracles in healing the sick, Damein shared in his book Convergence. 

Love is infectious

David was also moved by the outpouring of care from his son’s circles, in particular, Damein’s community of friends from church.

“They were strangers to my wife and me,” he said. “But they brought food, fruits and moral support – no invitation needed. They were very spontaneous.”

Friends visiting the family. “They brought food and fruits, and brought God into our home,” said David.

These church friends ferried Damein to church when he was too weak to drive. They prayed with the family.

“That’s when I saw God’s love,” David said. “That’s when I saw that being a Christian is not just believing in Christ – it is showing His love. That’s when I wanted to be a part of that community,” said David.

Damein’s small group from church celebrated his 39th birthday with him.

When David’s wife Alice told him that she signed up for the Alpha course to find out more about the faith, David asked: “Got sign me up or not?”

David (then 76) and his wife Alice were baptised later that year on Christmas Day.

“Having Jesus in my life is the best experience. He is Someone who is guiding you, saying: ‘Be calm, trust me, everything will be alright’,” said David, age 76, at his baptism.

For Damein and his sister, who had become the first Christians in their family at ages 10 and 17, their parents baptism was an answer to one of their biggest prayers.

Damein’s parents were baptised 11 months after his diagnosis. By then, Damein had already outlived his original prognosis.

A card for extra time with Damein 

David has witnessed several miracles in Damein’s health journey, including healing of a skin condition Damein had struggled with since childhood. 

“Also, Damein had no major side effects from chemotherapy.”

A year into his cancer treatment, Damein slowly regained basic strength and immunity and was able to return to a life of independence in between chemo cycles.

By June 2024, his cancer markers had dropped to the range for people without cancer.

It was not a full recovery, but doctors commented that his condition was “unusually favourable” and “one in a million”. One went as far as to say that it’s “almost like a miracle” that his condition was so stable.

In April 2025, Damein was able to fulfil his promise to take his father to Japan – a pact he made with his father when he was first diagnosed

Said David: “I did not think it would happen. But it did.”

Father and son were able to fulfil their pact to travel together to Japan. “It was the longest stretch of time we had spent side by side as adults – walking, talking, and simply spending real time together,” said David.

God had answered Damein’s prayer for more time on earth and David’s prayer to get to know his son.

David, at age 80, continues working as an electronics designer with a local traffic light maintenance contractor with the Land Transport Authority. The company won a project to implement the Green Man+ initiative giving elderly pedestrians and persons with disabilities extra seconds to cross the road. The company is currently implementing the fourth phase of this project.

When they tap their concession card on RFID card readers at certain pedestrians crossings, the green man stays on longer, giving them more time to cross the road safely, explained David.

“God has given me a similar card – extra days with Damein,” he said. 

Damein (right) with his parents and sister’s family having their reunion dinner in February 2026.

By medical standards, those extra days were not guaranteed.

David said: “I’ve had 365 days x four years with Damein – thousands of days already. It is a gift, a bonus.”

“I got my son back”

In late 2025, scans showed that medically, things were not going in the right direction for Damein.

What if it is time for Damein to be with God?

“Of course, there will be sadness,” David admitted.

“What God gives, He can also take away. Only He can decide. God has already been good enough to let my son know that I love him.

“In the natural order, the older person should go first. Hopefully, Damein will outlive me. But God has given me time to prepare in case Damein is taken away prematurely.

“As a Christian, we also know that we will meet again in heaven, where there will be no suffering.”

David looks back at the diagnosis that once shattered him: “The cancer was God’s way of bringing my son and me closer – and bringing me to Himself.”

David also noticed that Damein has become more patient with his mother.

“God brought the whole family back together,” he said.  “I got to know my son. My son got to know me.

“I got my son back.”

Damein’s second book, Fuelled by Hope, will be launched on April 25, 2026. It will be available through Faithworks. 

Join us in praying for David, Damein and their family

• That the Lord would continue to grow them close as a family
• That the Lord will grant Damein the time he asks for, and that he will receive His best.

Part of this story is based on David’s video testimony for Salt&Light. Watch it here:

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