EVERY night, Mrs Lim Huay Hoey, 56, sits by the phone, waiting for the second of her three sons, Wee Boon, to call.

But he has not done so for the past four months and will not do so ever again.

In the early hours of Sept 23 last year, the 19-year-old Singapore Polytechnic student met with an accident while on his motorcycle, riding home from Yishun. He died in hospital.

That night, he called his mum before going home, as always.

Mrs Lim's eyes teared up as she recalled: 'He said to me, 'Mummy, I am leaving now.' I told him to be careful.'

Barely an hour later at about 1.30am, he was flung off his bike. His vehicle had skidded outside the gates of Concord Primary School, near the family's home in Choa Chu Kang Avenue 4.

Wee Boon, a sociable aeronautical engineering student with a passion for lion dance, was taken to the National University Hospital (NUH) with a ruptured liver and kidney.

He died an hour later.

When Mrs Lim, a seamstress, got the phone call from NUH at 2am, she did not think his injuries were that serious, 'but when I got to the hospital, he was already not breathing'.

It was the culmination of all her fears about his motorbike riding. He had earned his bike licence last year and bought a second-hand bike three days later.

After his funeral, she did not leave home for two weeks. She still has not gone back to work. Only lately has she started shopping with friends.

She said: 'I used to be very happy in the past. Right now, I can't be happy.'

The bedroom that Wee Boon shared with his brother is a shrine to his memory. His books and lion dance props are still there.

'But now that he's gone, the home is more quiet than usual,' Mrs Lim added wistfully.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Jan 28, 2008