Tuesdays Without Bapak

Told Kak Olin the other day that I feared the day Bapak would leave us. I feared the moment. I feared what I would have to face. I feared the morning after.

We were talking about it the evening Bapak breathed his last at the ICU of Pantai Medical Centre.

But when that moment came, I was too numb to feel anything, much less fear.

I think we all went through the motion of getting things done for him -- you know, to get him home, to prepare his grave...nothing actually sank in.

Did we weep?

A TV reporter, when interviewing me after Bapak's funeral, asked me whether I was keeping it all inside? Actually, it was not a question. It was a statement. He said I was keeping it all inside.

He could be right. But I told him that if the interview went a little longer, I'd probably be too weepy to say anything. I didn't think he believed me.

There were several occasions when I "sebak" and silently wept -- when I first saw him lying motionless, tubes in his mouth and limbs, on the hospital bed, then again at his bedside when he it was so clear that he was not ever going to get better, the evening he died, when I took part in pouring water over his covered body during "mandi jenazah" and later, when his shrouded body was lowered into his grave.

But those were brief moments.

It is during my "doa" after prayers that I weep over our loss. An aching loss. Over how much we miss him. The emotions come flooding, gushing, when I "sedekah "Al-Fatihah for him, for Allah SWT to bless his soul.

Of course, one day Bapak would leave us. We knew that.
But, I thought I would be prepared for the eventuality.
After 12 days going in and out of the ICU as Bapak laid critically ill, we all thought we would be prepared. How wrong we were.

But we are thankful that when he left us, it was on a blessed day of a blessed month. We thank Allah SWT for that.

I remember talking to Nina the day before Bapak passed away. We were looking, gazing into the glass door, at our Bapak. We were wondering how long he'd be that way.

I told her about a friend's father who was in hospital for three weeks before the doctors asked the family to make a decision.

We shivered. What a horrible thought.

Nina's eyes teared.

"Ya Allah," she whispered, her hands in supplication, "please, please, don't let us have to make the decision, If papa has to go, You decide and You take him...", and she wept.

Bapak (Nina calls him papa) died peacefully the next day. He was unconscious. His eyes opened slightly as Nina completed reciting the Yassin, and then, slowly shut. The the monitor triggered the red alert.

My step-mum was also there, reciting the Fatihah.

The nurses rushed in and said "Tan Sri is no more"....

Both my step-mum and Nina were in a daze, trying to absorb the moment as the nurses rushed to Bapak.

"He went so peacefully just as I finished reciting the Yassin," Nina kept saying. You could sense that she found much comfort in that.

Ramadhan this time, is, of course. different. But it is not sad, in a sorrowful way.

We've been warned that we'll feel the aching loss during Aidilfitri.

We feel it now.

We lost our mother in 1990. Then, our eldest sister, Kak Piah in 1994. And only last year, we lost Kak Eda.

We grieve. People do not quite get over the loss of their loved ones. They heal in different ways.

I know I can never quite utter the word "arwah". I could not for Mak, Kak Piah or Kak Eda.

May Allah bless your soul, dear Bapak....gone, but always in our hearts, in our prayers.

Al-Fatihah.