I woke up this morning to hugs and kisses from my youngest son, Alif, wishing me a “Happy Father’s Day”. He snuggled up to me for a while longer and upon realizing that the girls were already up and about, left me to remind them of this special day.
One by one, my two daughters came to the bedroom door with their greetings. Patpat was under the weather... hasn’t been for the past couple of days, down with cold and mild asthma attack.
I was already wide awake long before Alif threw his arms around me in bed. I was lying on my side, gazing out the bedroom window. I was reflecting upon myself as a father, dad, ayah, papa………to my four lovely children. Wondering what kind of father I have been to my children, and whether I am living up to their expectations, my own expectations, and everyone else’s expectations of a father.
I was also thinking about my father and how much I miss him since he passed away 34 years ago. I remember him as a firm but fair person. A strict disciplinarian yet a kind father. Accommodating yet a no-nonsense kind of father. Most of all, I remember him as a man who put his family first before anything else.
I remember how difficult it was growing up in a family of eleven siblings, 4 girls, 7 boys, each one two years different in age. Different in character and personality. It must have been hard for Pak to raise us on his meager income as a meter reader at the Waterworks Department in Alor Setar.
There are so many things to remember about Pak but I choose to keep with me many lessons of life that I have learnt from him. About being humble, taking pride in oneself, the importance of education and the bond of kinship. I remember his love showered in his silent way, unheard but felt. Like when I was sick while on holiday at my grandfather’s home in Sungai Tiang. I had gone there with my younger brother to help grandfather tend to his vegetable plot. We toiled the soil and picked ripe watermelons under the blazing sun.
At dawn I would follow my uncle, a rubber tapper, to his plantation. That was my routine over a few days until one morning I woke up with a high fever… my body burning, head throbbing. It was terrible for an eight year old.
Someone must have informed my father for in the afternoon he came in an office Land Rover. I was lying near the door of grandfather’s house… just a hut with wooden planks for floor, bamboo for walls and palm leaves for roof… when I saw the vehicle pulled up across the stream at the fringe of the vegetable plot. Pak had come to take me home. After he and the driver had had coffee with my grandfather and grandmother, Pak bundled me in a blanket, carried me in his arms and took me to the Land Rover. The driver carried our bags, walking behind my father with my younger brother in tow.
I sat in front with Pak all the way home and throughout that journey, he didn’t talk much. He just wrapped his right arm around me to keep me warm and occasionally, wiped the sweat on my face. How I wish that moment could last forever….
Then there was this time when I didn’t want to go to school one day. I was in Standard Two and in the afternoon session. For some reasons I did not feel like going to school that Thursday but got ready and wore my school uniform all the same. After lunch, I waited for Pak to come pick me up.
I had schemed a plan. I knew it would work. I was wearing the last pair of school uniform. The other set was already dirty and now soaked for washing. Then he came, riding his Vespa, at the junction near “Rumah Cina Taugeh”. Time to act… I jumped into a puddle, rolled over and over, and over again. I was a sight to behold. Mud all over me, dirty as a buffalo in a mudhole.
Pak reached home, shocked to see me in that condition, I guess. He asked what had happened. “I slipped,” I replied. “Are you hurt?” Pak asked. “No but I don’ t think I can go to school today,” I answered. “Why not?, he asked. “No clean uniform,” I said, thinking that should satisfy him and I could change into my “play clothes” and roam the kampung, barefooted and a catapult slung on my neck, to my heart’s content for the rest of the afternoon.
But, Pak was not letting me go easily. “Go wash up and change your clothes. I’ll explain to your teacher why you are not in uniform,” he said. That was it, my plan was not working as planned. “Pak, I don’t want to go school. Please, let me stay home,” I begged but to no avail. I must have overstretched his patience when I heard him roared his disapproval. I saw him reaching for his belt and whoosh…. I was gone. I ran as fast as I could into a thick undergrowth adjacent to the house and took refuge on a tree on the riverbank, keeping still on a branch that extended over the water.
Pak came after me, found me on the tree. He ordered me to get down but I refused. He disappeared only to return with an axe. He chopped off the branch and yours truly took a plunge into the river below. I caught hold of a nipah stem that happened to be floating by and paddled across the river. So afraid to go home, I stayed across river, playing on my own in the paddy field there. Just before dusk, I retrieved the nipah stem and paddled back to my house across the river, hoping that Pak had cooled down and was not angry with me anymore.
Quiet as a mouse I tiptoed into the bathroom. As I was stepping out of the bathroom, I felt a sharp pain across my back. Pak was waiting for me to come out and he struck me with a belt. I was beaten many times that night, I bled but I didn’t cry. He ordered me up and told me to go to bed without dinner.
I went to bed feeling so angry at my father that night. My back hurt so bad. Lying face down on the mattress, I sobbed quietly… It was past midnight when I felt someone came to me. It was Pak. I felt him touched my back and applied ointment on the wound. I guess he knew I was awake because I arched my back when he touched the cut.
I could hear him speaking softly, choking with emotion, saying he regretted whacking me but he was angry and disappointed with me. In a whisper, he told me the importance of education and that he did not want his children to miss out the opportunities to better our lives through education. Pak simply did not want us to grow up being like him, barely educated and not financially endowed to provide us with everything we needed. In the stillness of that night, I understood why Pak was very angry with me for skipping school that day.
I was fishing by the river behind the house the next morning…Pak came to sit next to me. We didn’t talk. I just sat there holding the fishing pole. Pak sat on the ground, on my right. He didn’t say a word. He was just there… I knew he wanted to make amends with me, in his own way. Pak placed his left arm on my shoulder and left it there for a long, long while…..
There are many memories about Pak… Some are beautiful, some are painful but all are lovely as one son would want to remember his father by.
Pak breathed his last in the wee hours of August 28, 1974, succumbing to a heart attack at the young age of 53. I didn’t shed a tear when Pak died… not even when the doctor at the hospital told us they were not able to revive him. Maybe, I was angry that he left us so soon. But I was missing him a lot. Unknowingly to my family, I would cycle to Yan, some 30 miles away from Alor Setar, to visit his grave on weekends. I think about two months after his death, on one of my visits to the grave, I eventually cried…
And, this morning… I miss Pak again, and silently, I shed tears for him ….. Happy Father’s Day, Pak.
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