Tribute to a Special Lady

During the last few days, we sat in Kakak’s living room, enjoying a bit of snacks, flicking through old albums and generally talking about this and that. Once in a while I half expected Kakak to poke her head through the window between the kitchen and the living room, asking us whether we wanted any tea or if there was enough food. She never did. And then reality set in. She will never walk through that door to the living room again or ask me if I need more sugar in my tea because just last Monday, we buried her in the place she wanted to be – the Garden of Peace.

The last few weeks had been a difficult time for all of us – especially for Kakak’s family that she left behind and for my children, whom she looked after since they arrived into this world. But it had also been a time of reflection and a time to start growing up. Since the doctors diagnosed the Big C five months ago and since watching her succumb painfully to the dreaded disease, we had all seen the changes in ourselves too.

Kakak came into our lives at a time when I desperately wanted to pursue my career and at the same time be a supermother. In other words, I wanted to be a Superwoman – and Kakak afforded me that. Life before Kakak was a bit of a shamble. I’d take our first born to work, meet up with a nanny ( a different one most days) at the office, breastfed him on demand and did my work. On certain days, my husband would take him to his office when I did my live daily broadcast . But we knew that this couldn’t go on and and we needed to place our trust in someone to look after our son – and Kakak fitted the bill perfectly.

Kakak came to London from Singapore in the late sixties, joining her newly wed husband who had served in the British Airforce. Their four children and our fast growing family of four soon grew up together as a family – a kind of extended family away from home.

Kakak and Abang saw to it that the children were well looked after, well fed while we pursued our career. From the day she scooped our eldest (who was then one) into her arms, we knew we had found the right person. When the rest came she was there to take charge. It was a pleasure to see the children so happy and contented in her living room. Most days, she’d prepare us dinner and on other days fried noodles or beriani ayam ready packed in old Margerine containers to take home. When we had assignments abroad, we didn’t have to worry about who would look after the little ones.

During weekends, we’d ferry Kakak, her children and ours to the mosque for their religious classes and more often than not, the evenings would be spent in her living room watching old Bollywood movies, eating fried noodles or keropok.

It has been about 24 years since we met this family from Singapore who had made such a difference in our lives. The last few years, we had been more concerned about Abang’s health and our children, now not needing anymore nannying, took turns to look after their ‘uncle’ and run errands for their ‘aunty’. After all we live only 10 minutes away from them across the A40. Kakak had complained once in a while about migrane and chest pains, but it was Abang that we were worried about as he lost the use of his fingers and finally his mobility. Kakak’s medical tests didn’t show anything. But the last few years, I admit shamefacedly, that I had not looked in as often as I should have because I had been pursuing my studies. But my children still visited while I phoned once in a awhile. But I never detected the change in Kakak.

I vividly remember a phonecall. Kakak, who was always bubbly and would speak endlessly about almost anything, was just replying to me in “aha, ha, and aha”. Yet I didn’t suspect anything. Our youngest who went to sit with her that afternoon came back and said aunty hardly acknowledged his presence. Kakak used to talk a lot. A goodbye at her doorsteps would usually last half an hour and if the weather was good, it would continue to the car. The first time she was admitted into hospital, it finally dawned on me. Apparently she had gone to her own doctor and then got confused. She couldn’t say anything. Her doctor suspected a stroke and when she was taken to Charing Cross Hospital, they found the offending lump in her brain and later two more in her lungs.

When I saw her that day, she was a little better although she still thought her year of birth was 1874. A succession of chemotherapy later saw some drastic changes; she lost weight and she lost her hair. Last May we celebrated her birthday in the visitors’ room on the eleventh floor of the hospital. She knew and we all knew it was her last. Although she was tired, she was happy to see most of the children she had cared for and her children and grandchildren.

There had been changes that had gone unnoticed. While she was in hospital, I cooked in her kitchen for Abang. Kakak had left clues that we had not picked up. Things that shoudn’t have been in the fridge were there, the usually organised cabinets were not as they should be. There was tea among spices and some important ingredients were nowhere to be seen.

It was two Thursdays ago that I got the dreaded call at work. The doctors were calling in her family and close friends as they didn’t think she would last the day. H was at work and quickly made his way there, R was in the library and hastily left, N and T who were at home dropped everything to be with their aunty. They were all in tears when I got there and we started reading the Yassin. Kakak was by the having difficulty breathing but could still acknowlege my presence.

When the morphine ceased to have anymore effect, she’d open her eyes and try to speak. That night I slept on two chairs by her bedside, listening to her breathing patterns and finally fell asleep only to be woken up by her attempts to pull off her gas mask. That afternoon, she was more alert looking at us intently, one by one. She acknowledged her visitors and squeezed my hand tight and even asked me what day it was. We whispered to her the syahadah and she moved her lips to show she understood. Once in a while she sipped the zam zam water that I brought back from umrah recently. By evening her legs had gone stone cold and the nurse told us that her body had started to shut down. We still harboured hopes that Kakak would stay on until the next morning when her son was due to arrive from Singapore. That evening, Abang, who had been in his wheelchair by her bedside since she was admitted, asked me to check on Kakak who had gone all quiet. She seemed to be asleep. I touched her hand, it felt warm and told Abang that Kakak was finally asleep after a restless afternoon. But how wrong I was. She went very quietly and very peacefully without us realising it.

It must have been around nine when she slipped off quietly. I didn’t cry and couldn’t cry as there were the younger ones, my children and her children who were witnessing their first experience of death. There were calls to be made. The nurses allowed us time to be with her and it was about 3 am that we all went home leaving Kakak in the mortuary during the weekend as we couldn’t register her death for burial.

That weekend saw me endlessly cooking and cooking in Kakak’s kitchen. It was my way of coping. We had tahlil every night since then. Kakak’s children coped admirably – got the death certificate and registered her death and then we raced through the heavy Monday morning traffic to East London mosque for the jenazah prayers. We then paid our last respects to Kakak before following the convoy to the Garden of Peace in Hainnault. It was indeed a peaceful and serene place – far, but nice. Many other members of the Malay community were buried there. Kakak would have liked that.

Kakak would have been pleased too to know that her surau mates were there. For the next three days, they sent food to the house, telling us that Kakak had cooked for them when she was alive.
Kakak’s next door neighbour who hailed from Pakistan told us how every Ramadan, without fail, Kakak donated to her village in the border with Afghanistan, sometimes enough to feed a whole village and even helped build a well in one. It then emerged news of her generous donations to schools around here. How little I knew of Kakak during the last few years of her life.

As we walked back to the car, leaving Kakak to rest in her final resting place, I thought back to the times she visited us at home. Everytime before she left, she’d say, “OK Zaharah, Kakak jalan dulu!”

Yes, Kakak, thank you very much and Al Fatehah.