Bapak
How much can you know a person in three months?
The answer is not much.
Yet that was precisely the amount of time I was given with my late father-in-law, who passed away yesterday morning at 9.15am.
It would have been nicer if I had more time to know bapak, a man who by all accounts was held in high regard by his family, his bosses and his colleagues. A man who fought hard to reach the highest levels of civil service from his humble origins in Sungai Limau, Kedah (which he was so proud to show me just a month ago). A man who fought even harder against the cancer which wreaked havoc on his liver for the past seven to eight years.
He always came back. No matter how many hospital visits. No matter how many admissions into the ICU. No matter how many times the doctors wrote off his chances. He always came back.
This time, however, Allah had other plans.
Three months is too short a time for me to be able to tell you what kind of person he is.
However, I'd like to recall an incident from last year, during another one of bapak's visits to the ICU. He had been unconscious for a few days and the doctors had told the family to be prepared for the worst. Somehow, he made it back again.
When I met him for the first time after he regained his consciousness, before I could say a word, he had asked me if I had eaten my lunch.
That was, quite frankly, one of the most ridiculous questions I had ever heard in my life. He had no right to be concerned about my well-being when he was the one coming off a battle for his life. And I wasn't even family yet at that point. But that was bapak.
And I guess, at the end of the day, that is all anyone needs to know about him.
I end this post with an Instagram picture posted by one of my cousins-in-law (since I don't even have a proper picture with bapak).
The answer is not much.
Yet that was precisely the amount of time I was given with my late father-in-law, who passed away yesterday morning at 9.15am.
It would have been nicer if I had more time to know bapak, a man who by all accounts was held in high regard by his family, his bosses and his colleagues. A man who fought hard to reach the highest levels of civil service from his humble origins in Sungai Limau, Kedah (which he was so proud to show me just a month ago). A man who fought even harder against the cancer which wreaked havoc on his liver for the past seven to eight years.
He always came back. No matter how many hospital visits. No matter how many admissions into the ICU. No matter how many times the doctors wrote off his chances. He always came back.
This time, however, Allah had other plans.
Three months is too short a time for me to be able to tell you what kind of person he is.
However, I'd like to recall an incident from last year, during another one of bapak's visits to the ICU. He had been unconscious for a few days and the doctors had told the family to be prepared for the worst. Somehow, he made it back again.
When I met him for the first time after he regained his consciousness, before I could say a word, he had asked me if I had eaten my lunch.
That was, quite frankly, one of the most ridiculous questions I had ever heard in my life. He had no right to be concerned about my well-being when he was the one coming off a battle for his life. And I wasn't even family yet at that point. But that was bapak.
And I guess, at the end of the day, that is all anyone needs to know about him.
I end this post with an Instagram picture posted by one of my cousins-in-law (since I don't even have a proper picture with bapak).
Al-Fatihah.
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