Andrew Chan with his nephew Kai at Kerobokan prison in Bali. Photo: Supplied
On the day he was told that death would come in just three days, Andrew Chan was moved to write a poignant letter to his young nephew Kai, urging him to learn from his mistakes.
The former drug smuggler and heroin addict, who was transformed in prison, adored the eight-month-old son of his sister Mary, meeting him for the first – and last – time in February.
Infused with love and regret, it is an affectionate letter to the baby he had dubbed “piggytron”.
“It’s been a long journey, Kai,” he writes. “I did bad things when I was younger which landed me in prison.”
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“I learnt a lot while I was in prison, what was important and what life is about,” he says.j “Please listen to your Mum and Dad, they are very good parents. They love you unconditionally.”
Chan was racked by guilt about what he put his family through.
As his parents worked punishing hours in Chinese restaurants they owned across Sydney, Chan went off the rails, neglecting his studies and hooking up with the notorious gangster Danny Karam in Sydney’s Kings Cross and running drugs for him.
The tenderness in the letter reflects how much Chan changed after he found God and devoted himself to helping others.
“The last time I saw you, you were rolling around in a cot visiting me in Bali,” he writes. “Kai, I love you, your name is tattooed on my heart, you will always be my favourite nephew.”
The place of tattoo was desperately touching, with Chan knowing that Indonesian police would be aiming their rifles at his heart when it came time to be executed.
Photos supplied by the family show an ecstatic Chan cuddling Kai, the youngster responding with a cheeky grin.
“He is Kai’s favourite uncle,” said Chan’s brother Michael via SMS on Friday. “He would have just loved to spend more time with him, to convert him into a Penrith Panthers fan and take him to the games…
“He loves him to bits and wishes he could have hugged him for the last time.”
Chan has accepted his fate at the time he writes the letter to Kai, any hope of a last minute reprieve vanished.
The letter, he tells Kai, “will be the only letter that you’ll read of mine till I see you in heaven…
“I dreamt of the day that I would see you again and to even marry you, however that wasn’t to be.”
Chan was ordained a minister during his last weeks in Kerobokan, so could have presided over the wedding.
Chan tells Kai how he wished he “could have taught you about Jesus, about how he blessed me in many amazing ways”.
“I love you Kai, keep looking to Jesus, trust in his ways and learn from my mistakes.”
“I love you always,” it finishes. “Your Uncle, Andrew.”
the sydney Herald
