Sheila Sim's 'biggest regret in life' is not being at brother's deathbed

Towards the end of her brother's life, Sheila Sim wanted to be away from the hospital. Because of this, she didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him.

The 41-year-old local actress was a guest in the final episode of CNA series The Assembly 2, where she answered questions from neurodivergent individuals and recounted her experience when her brother Cedear died of leukaemia at the age of 14.

Sheila shared that she was nine at the time — too young to know about cancer. She also didn't understand why she was frequently going to the hospital to visit him. When his condition deteriorated, she donated her bone marrow to him.

When asked why she wasn't at the hospital when her brother died, she teared up as she said: "I will always have regrets about that... Because I was always in the hospital, I didn't want to be in the hospital anymore."

She explained that when the doctor told her parents that her brother was in critical condition, her parents had discussed preparing an outfit for his wake. Knowing her brother loved the sneakers brand LA Gear, her father decided to buy a pair of shoes for him.

With tears in her eyes, she recounted: "I immediately volunteered, because I just wanted to be out of the hospital and so I went. When I came back, he wasn't there anymore.

"This will always be my biggest regret in life."

While another individual said her brother would have been "honoured" that she bought the shoes for him, Sheila still wished she could have been there when her brother breathed his last because she would never know what he would have wanted to tell her. She also didn't get to say goodbye.

Sheila was also asked what she would have told her brother if given the chance.

"I would say that I'm sorry for all the fights that we had. I would say that he's very brave to have put up a very, very courageous fight against leukaemia, and that I love him very much and I'm sorry I never got the chance to show it or to say it when he was healthy and strong," she said.

In the episode, Sheila also opened up about her tumultuous childhood where her parents fought frequently and there was a lot of unhappiness, fear and loneliness as she was growing up.

She recounted how she and her brother were often left alone at home at night then: "Thankfully, I had my brother at that point to protect me."

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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com