At age 86, Henry has lived a remarkable life of struggles, achievements, riches and love. Henry had written his self-obituary just a few months before his prostate cancer metastasized to the bones.  At the time, Henry wanted to share with all of us his lifelong stories and lessons, he titled his memoir “Sweet memories derived from my mid-summer's night’s dream”. Written in English and Chinese, traditionally hand-bound with picture inserts, photocopied onto recycled paper, this memoir is definitely a family treasure.  This memoir also reflected Henry’s character as a practical, determined, caring, romantic, passionate and generous father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and a friend we all loved and respected.  Following a short battle with prostate cancer, Henry passed away comfortably and quietly in his sleep at Vancouver General Hospital on May 19, 2018.  A Prayer vigil will be held at St. Francis Xavier Church in Vancouver, BC, on Thursday, June 14, 2018  6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.  Funeral mass will be followed by a memorial reception which will be held on Friday June 15th at 10:30 a.m. Henry was born in Hong Kong on July 12, 1932,  the last of 13 children to a large family. His father, Kwok Kam Hang, was a joint owner of the publicly traded Po Sang Cheong Corp., a large trading company contributing to a significant part of Hong Kong’s economy at the time.  Henry was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, However, the good times ended with the start of the Second World War when Henry was only a young teenager.  Henry’s father suffered multiple business losses, and his father’s fortune vanished overnight. After the war, Henry’s family lived in poverty for over a decade, during this time, he recognized that his family and his own future to start a family of his own solely depends on his own achievements. With his father’s influence, Henry was admitted to Wah Yan College, a Irish Catholic boy school, where hard work and determination earned him the highest honors among his class.  With God’s grace, under the recommendations of this schoolmaster, Henry was then accepted to the pharmacist school at HKU and graduated with distinction, which landed him a post as a hospital pharmacist at Queen Mary’s Hospital, the largest hospital in Hong Kong at the time.  Henry finally had earned a decent job as a hospital pharmacist and along  came staff accommodation, and most importantly, the right to marry my beloved mother, Agnes, Lou Ji Ying, who was a nurse at the hospital.  With a dream job and a beautiful wife, married life was one of the happiest  moments of Henry’s life.  By 1962, four children, Mary, Anne, David and Michael were born.
Henry worked as a hospital pharmacist until the booming economy in Hong Kong in the 60’s had enticed him to start his own wrist watch manufacturing business. Henry said, “a pharmacist job cannot make enough money for a growing family”.  Partly due to his fluency in English, he registered the first wrist watch manufacturing factory in Hong Kong in the mid 60’s.  Henry and Agnes built a successful manufacturing and export business before the family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada, in 1976 to provide better education opportunities for his children. In Vancouver, Henry started a new life with the four children, his mother, Maria, L.F. Ng Kwok, and Agnes’ mother, Maria, S.W. Fung Lou.  Henry and Agnes continued to operate a small import and retail business for the next 10 years, travelling between Vancouver and Toronto in their motorhome, until they finally retired in their 60’s, after 1 million miles of travelling across Canada.  Henry said to his wife, “ Traveling on the road with you across Canada provided many of the best memories of my life”.   Within a few short years, Agnes passed away from metastatic breast cancer in 2002.  Henry missed his beloved wife very much and his grief provided him energy and determination to study botanical Chinese medicine with the aim of helping others with cancer. Today, many of this friends know Henry to be an unfailingly generous pharmacist and herbalist who believed cancer can be controlled and cured if diagnosed and treated early.  At the end, Henry is survived by his four adult children, 9 grandchildren, and 5 great- grandchildren.  Henry lived a happy life.  Henry left in peace, accepted what he cannot change, worked hard and thrived for the best that he could achieve.  He felt accomplished, he felt loved and beloved, finally he was reunited with his beloved Agnes on the other side.
Rest well.