My Dad

My dad, or Ayah to me, has been bed-ridden for a couple of years now.



He was diagnosed to be suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS in short) or Lou Gehric (that American baseball legend) Disease.



ALS is a motor and sensory nerve degenerative disease initiated by chronic uncontrolled diabetes (that what I was told by the doctor over in KLH when he was first diagnosed).



In short, most of his muscles, especially the legs and hands shrink causing progressive loss of motor functions, starting from the power to stand, to walk and now, even to sit up unaided.

To me, the thing that probably hurts him most is his loss of walking-about ability. When he was a policeman, he liked to go on his motorcycle to many places. He used to ride on his kapcai Honda from Kemaman to Kota Bharu and then straight to Negeri Sembilan. Of course, when he was in Kemaman, he preferred chatting with his friends in Chukai.

Now, he spends most of his awake time on the old bed in his 10X15 room, either watching television or looking out of the window.

Despite him being bed-ridden for so long, his spirit is still high. He still talks of him one day being well and able to walk again. That hurts me most, for I know the probability of an ALS sufferer to overcome the disease is almost nil.

My presence, be it for just a couple of minutes, will bring great joy to him. It shows on his face that he really looks forward to be visited by his children. That is why, I do not mind commuting daily from Kemaman to Kuantan. People say that it will exhausting to me...but I just do it for his sake.

In such a difficult time, he needs someone very close to him, like my mother. Sad to say they were separated in their twilight years a couple of years ago. I do not want to talk much about their separation...but it was just unbearable to think that after more than fourty years of marriage and nine children, that divorce was possible.

I know for a fact that he still loves my mother, but sadly the opposite was not so. There is not even a flicker of love in my mother for him.

Many a times he would asked me whether my mother ever asked about him. He also said that there was no divorce as far as he was concerned, but mother was adamant that he had uttered those forbidden words.

I was not sure what had really happened between them. What worries me is that what if he is right all along? Mother will be in sin forever...May Allah shows the right way...

Their divorce has never been registered. He often said that his pension will go to mother once he is no more with us.

We have tried to talk with mother, but she would not listen to any of us. That is what our mother is.

Once I asked her: "After a nearly five decades of marriage, is there a feeling of compassion towards him?"

She did not answer me that time, but I overheard her a couple of times saying that the hatred was so great that there was no more space for him in her life...

Pity father...I will continue looking after you in my rather limited ability and capacity. May Allah bless you and give you peace and patience in facing the great trial.

Searching for Class of 66 SK Pusat Kemaman

I don't know why...

There is this persistent longing to meet friends...

Friends of yesteryears...

Friends from Class 1966 SK Pusat Kemaman

Many a times I went searching for familiar faces...

at the market, shopping complexes and pasar malam..

But found only a few so far...

They are Deramang, Nawawi...

Need to find many more...

Those that I am in contact or know where they are include...

Aminah (Emy), Azizah, Wan Esah (WEH) , Abu Bakar Kassim, Zakaria Osman, Ahmad Zaidan, Wan Azlan, Shamsiah Abu Bakar ( in nursing school somewhere in Middle east), Mat Deris ( Principal of SMK Binjai), Ibrahim Jusuh (Jab Pertanian Terengganu), Hazis Khalid (he was referred to as Wali)





Though I have forgotten many of their names and faces...

It is good if we can meet somewhere...

Talk about the past..

Talk about what we had be through...

All the trials and tribulations..

And the many success that we had...

Share the jokes...

Share the sadness of friends that had left us..

Meet the spouses and children...

Now I am a frequent vistor to SK Pusat...

My youngest daughter is there in Tahun 6 Amanah...

Fetching her from extra classes has been my duty...

I always hope and pray that out there somewhere, all 1966 ex-classmates of SK Pusat Kemaman will read this plea..

It is my dream to meet you all

Man is created to guard the earth's equilibrium...

In his quest to fulfill his endless needs and wants, man always try to bend nature in whatever he does.

Hills and even mountains are sloped, cut and even levelled just to get raw materials like granite, earth, etc

Swamps are mercilessly filled in to make sites for their housing estates and commercial centres.

Forests are needlessly shaved and trees felled just for the greed of costly timber for making houses, furnitures, etc

Wild animals are hunted down, trapped and sold to the highest bidder to be eaten, reared as personal pets and also for the many zoos worldwide. Many animal species have perished becaus of this unsatiable lust.

Little that they know hills and mountains are created by Allah as anchor holding the earth together; forests as oxygen supplier greatest reservoir of water; swamps are the natural air-conditioner...but then after destroying all these they start complaining about global warming, floods, drought etc etc

When they start killing tigers, wild pig population shoots up - crops are then destroyed by these pigs. When they destroy too many wild pigs, tigers will not have enough pigs to hunt, so instead they start hunting human...

When they start felling trees and clearing jungles, monkeys are displaced...so they then invade human dwellings, causing nuisance and even spread disease to human...the latest is malaria which is caused by Plasmodium knowlesi which is spread by mosquito from monkey to man...

When they start felling and burning trees, fruit bats lack natural fruit trees to find food and so they migrate to fruit orchards near pig farms..thus spreading Nipah virus to pig farmers and handlers...> 100 people died due to Nipah virus...

Many viral diseases, like HIV, Nipah, Hemorrhagic fever are all caused by man disturbing mother nature...

So, please take care of this earth...stop plundering them beyond repair...the earth is an amanah for us to keep for our great great grandchildren....we owe it to them...

Human versus animals

We human always like to put the blame on others. We do not realize that every time we point a finger at others four other fingers are pointing at us!

Examples are many. When a car collided with a herd of stray cattle, we immediately point fingers to the grass-eaters as the cause of the accident. Almost always DVS is made responsible.

When a tiger attacked and killed a man oh we immediately said that tigers are bad.

But the thing that I hate most is when a man misbehaves (to put it mildly), we most often will say that 'he is just like animal'.

Do we realize that animals are never bad...it is us who are often bad. Take the case of a tiger or
a crocodile attacking and kiling a man.

Why does it do so? Out of hatred? Jealousy? Fighting for worldly materials? Power? Money?

No! No! No! It does so out of desperation - to eat to live, injured and unable to hunt normal prey, food scarcity, etc etc but never the things that I have mentioned above.

When a crocodile, or a tiger or a shark attacked and killed a man almost always there will be a panic hunting down of the so-called killer. Many innocent (all animals are innocent really) animals are killed out of our uncontrolled rage.

Ironically though, when about 5,000 people are killed on our roads annually we never blame and go driver hunting!

Do you know how many animals are killed daily the world over just to feed our stomach? By the millions or may be trillions!

Many species of animals are extinct because of human hunting - either for food, fur, aphrodisiacs (they just think so, but there is no scientific evidence) etc etc

Do you know how much does a tiger costs in the black market now? RM300/kg, that was I gather from a friend. In a tiger, everything is used - skin, meat, bone, whiskers, hair, penis and even the feces!

When oil palm plantations are ravaged by elephants the first request by the owners is for the authority to kill the elephants. I really hate this. Why do elephants destroy the oil palm trees? Simple, because the planters have intruded their domain...destroying their normal food in so doing...

Yes, I know some of us will say animals kill their own kind too. You may have seen a lion killing the entire cubs of the other lion. A zebra kicking to death a zebra calf. All these are done just to make sure his gene is passed on...by killing the other animal's offsprings, the female will soon come to heat (receptive) and mating will occur and so his genes can be passed down.

But man kills for much lesser reasons...just because the victim overtook him rudely, winking his eyes at his girlfriend, not paying the money he owed on time and so on..

In a nutshell, animals are far better than human if we do not use our mental facility correctly, control our temper etc..So, never says that a bad human being is just like animals...they will never be the same!

I remember seeing this in Atlanta Zoo way back in 1995: There was an empty cage next to a cobra's. There was a big mirror with the following wordings beneath it: "YOU ARE NOW WATCHING THE MOST POISONOUS SPECIES OF ALL"

Looking out of the window

I was busy giving the final touches to the power point presentation. It was for the individual presentation for my PTK4.

Looking out of the window I saw a mother blue kingfisher busy bringing food for her youngs in a hole in the steep earth wall bordering the Institut Pengurusan Veterinar Cheras.

For the past hour I saw her diligently bringing something in her mouth that from the distance I could just made it out to be lizards and baby frogs. No wonder I had been hearing the knocking sound on the roof - it was the sound of her trying to catch the elusive lizards.

As soon as she landed in front of the hole I herad that distinct chirping of the nestlings. I guessed there were two or three of them baby chicks in there.

It was clever of her to have chosen the steep wall to build her nest. It was surely safe from prowling tom cats and mischievous children.

On the crawlers-covered and rarely cleaned perimeter fence I saw long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) parading precariously as they munched on Micania chordata (selaput tunggul) leaves. A newly born baby was seen clinging fast to its mother's belly as its mother hopped from a jackfruit tree to the fence.

Ten feet away near the swamp I saw a pair of white breasted waterhen busy looking for worms in the soft earth.

A juvenile monitor lizard scurried across the empty field and went straight into the bushes.

Up the power line above brown-throated bee-eaters were getting ready to fly after a swarm of bees in the distant.

An unidentified butterfly flew past the window, probably looking for evening nectar from a row of hibiscus in front of the parking area.

Enough of the nature escapade I finished my presentation....

Shakirin came visiting us...

Suddenly I remember arwah Shakirin...tears well up in my eyes as I begin to write this story...

He would be 22 today...
But Allah loves him better than us...
He was called to Him on 10 July 1991...
13 days short of his 5th birthday...


For 17 years 13 days since he left us...
We still miss him very much...

His memories are still as fresh as ever...
His cheerful, sense of humour and...
always positive attitude towards life made us all
miss him more...



That was Khairul Syakirin...our beloved son..
He succumbed to Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia after battling it for a year...



Still vivid in my mind how strong and determined he was in fighting the disease...
How he remained still when his small hand was constantly poked for blood sample...
How he yelled at the doctors instructing them to get it in one go...
How rigid he was in taking in all those bitter pills...

But most of all, how he constantly reminded me to write down his story...
Of all the trials and tribulation he had to undergo...
Of how his family had to bear it all..
So that others will understand what suffering from leukemia is all about...



Even at that tender age he was already an altruist...

He was a very intelligent boy really...
Once he amazed the doctors when he said "no" to the doctors who were talking about their plan to do spinal tap on him.

This morning Syazwan woke up with tears (berabok air mata - to use his exact sms to me)in his eyes...he dreamed of meeting arwah Shakirin last night...

My wife 'met' arwah Syakirin in front of her as she was praying zohor yesterday (she called me as soon as she received the same sms from Syazwan)...

Yes, may be our son, arwah Syakirin, he visited us, to see what is happening to his family...

Have we forgotten about him?

For in our 'busy worldly quest' we have not visited him for so long...

Oh dear, please forgive us...

You are still very close to our hearts...still a part of the family...we miss you very very much...

Al- Fatihah to you....

May you always be in His keep always

We will always remember you...

From Ma, Aboh, Sisters and Brothers and all those who knew you

Moments of My Life - Part 15

A few weeks after the Australian trip, Dr. Kadir Osman called me to his room and told me that there was a plan to transfer me to Melaka. He said that he had nothing against the transfer plan, as it would be good for my career.

I was excited with the news. So were my family members, they too were looking forward to our transfer to the historical state of Melaka.

Not very long after that I received my transfer letter. I was given the honor to be the Melaka State Veterinary Director, replacing my classmate, Dr. Abu Hassan Mohamad Ali, who was transferred to the Dairy unit in the headquarters.

In Melaka we rented a newly completed single-storey semi-detached house in Taman Bahagia, Bukit Baru. It was only RM350.00 per month. It was about ten minutes drive from my office that was situated in Ayer Keroh.

It was in Melaka too that another son of ours, Syafiq, returned to us after spending seven years living with my parents-in laws. Diyana and Syafiq went to school in Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Beruang.

I had chosen that school just for the simple reason that it was situated on my way to the office. Others preferred the more popular Sekolah Kebangsaan Dato’ Palembang, but I did not. It was just far too crowded for my liking.

Both of them, Diyana especially, adapted well to the school and soon were making many friends.Among Diyana friends whom I could still remember were Nicolette, Mei Yean, Haniza, Anas, Syafiq, Hizami.

Diyana was so close with a few of them, especially Nicolette, that their friendship remained strong until now. She would always try to meet them whenever we were in Melaka. I hope that their friendship will remain forever, right into their adulthood, and may one day they meet again in the institute of higher learning.

Syazwan was also very happy growing up in Melaka. He too had many friends. He was also very helpful to the family especially for buying nasi lemak in a food stall not far from our house.

Once I could not help myself from laughing when I overheard him ordering nasi lemak from the stall: “Five nasi lemak with separate gravy please!”

He was very good in the details since very small. Like his late brother, he too was a very robust child, running here and there and climbing whatever interested him.

He even had a girlfriend then. They used to ride their bicycles together and shared the sugar cane juice.

Life as a government officer in Melaka was something else. Being a small state, most of us heads of departments and political figures knew each other well. The relationship was even closer in the state agricultural committee. The leading government agency under the agricultural committee, at least financially, was of course the Melaka Integrated Agricultural Development Project.

Its Director then was Salleh Suradi. Most of our developmental projects were funded by his agency. Whatever was said about the then Chief Minister of Melaka, he was still a dynamic leader and he had moved us all as a strong team in the successful running of the state.

Melaka had changed a lot under his leadership, from a sleepy hollow to a dynamic and vibrant industrialized state that was the envy of other larger and richer states.

From the livestock industry point of view, Melaka was the chief producer of fresh milk in the nation and it was an important poultry producing state too.

However, my family liked Melaka most because of its many good tourist destinations within an area. We did not have to travel far to visit all these places. The Bandar Hilir, which was famous for it’s A’Famosa castle, was our favorite weekend destination.

Syazwan just loved the hill, the fields and not to mention the bullock carts. I was especially attracted to the many seafood stalls around Serkam and Umbai where their grilled fish and nasi lemak were something that visitors to Melaka should not have missed.

My wife loved living in Melaka so much because here she found so many good friends, both in our neighborhood as well as my colleagues’ wives. Official functions and dinners were common events when we were in Melaka.

During such events, spouses were usually invited along. It was through such dinners that my wife befriended her closest friend, Suhaibah, the wife of Mr. Nawayai the Director of Melaka zoo. They were indeed very close friends until now.

In Melaka, I did not have much time to actually perform real veterinarian’s work. I was more in the administrative, consultative and public relation kind of works.

I was even appointed as a board member of a state agricultural company that was involved in a wide agricultural activities including cattle feedlotting. I used to give my expert opinion on matters pertaining to feedlotting.

Besides feedlotting, I was also deeply involved in sheep and goats production. I was impressed when youths in Melaka were so dedicated in sheep rearing and transform Melaka into an important sheep producing state.

From what I knew, these youths were also involved in marketing the sheep, and this explained why they were more successful compared to their counterparts in the other states.

My wife began to have more regular asthmatic attacks in Melaka. Her asthma would normally be exacerbated whenever she had colds and flu.

Once I was really in dilemma, caught in between two things - going to Sabah for a meeting or staying besides her and forgetting about the meeting.

The night before my departure to Sabah, she was having her asthmatic attacks. Her asthma continued to the morning that I was supposed to leave for Sabah. I did not know why, but I chose to go to Sabah. Perhaps I thought that her asthma would subside when the environmental temperature increased.

Just I was leaving the arrival hall at Kota Kinabalu airports, I heard my name being called via the public address system, asking me to report to the information counter. At the counter I saw a notice asking me to go home immediately as my wife was in the ICU. After telling my Sabah counterparts of my problem, I then took the next flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Reaching my house in Bukit Baru, I saw a big crowd gathering in my house. Both my parents and parents-in-law were there too. I then rushed to Melaka General hospital.

She was still in the intensive care unit. It was sad to see her lying unconscious like that. I held both her hands and whispered to her ears telling her how sorry I was for leaving her alone in the first place.

According to a doctor there, she was much better that when she was brought in and her condition was now stable. They also told me that they had to put her on the respirator machine, as her system was not functioning.

I was scolded for having left her alone in her condition. I had nearly lost her. An old Malay lady in the ward voiced her amazement at how close my wife was to Allah throughout her predicament. The word Allah was always in her mouth. That was why, she thought, she made it through her critical condition safe and sound. Thanks God for saving her.

It was my neighbor Dr. Baba who brought my wife to the hospital.Diyana was the real heroine behind all these. She was the one who organized everything when her mother was rushed to the hospital. She called both my parents, parents-in-law, and my office telling them what had happened to her mother.

She also called her teacher for help. She even cooked Maggie noodles for her little brother. I knew that she was very independent since she was very small, but I was so surprised to see her being so dependable in times of need.

Since that episode, I would never again leave her, for whatever reason, whenever she had, even the slightest, signs of asthma. On the positive side, that incident had made her more aware that it was important for her to always have her supply of Pulmicort and Bricanyl inhalers at hand.