Dan seorang lagi kembali kepada Nya.

Dalam satu entri yang kutulis lewat bulan April, dua rakan baru disahkan menghidap kanser. Ketika itu hati sudah terasa retak. Dada sendiri terasa sesak. Apa lagi bila aku saban hari dihidangkan dengan gambar anak-anak comel di Facebook milik salah seorang rakanku ini.
Selang beberapa hari, seorang daripada mereka telah mengadap Ilahi dan mengejutkan kami semua. Kansernya baru di tahap kedua, tetapi Allah maha besar. Rakanku dijemput Pencipta setelah mengadu sakit dada.
Jadi, seorang lagi rakan telah meneruskan perjuangan memerangi kanser. Saban hari, hati terusik membaca statusnya di Facebook, apa lagi bila dia memuat naik gambar anak-anak kecilnya yang gembira kerana 'Papa selalu ada kat rumah sejak papa sakit'. Apalah yang anak kecil itu faham. Pasti sahaja hatinya gembira, apatah lagi si Papa memang kerap bekerja sehingga lewat malam dan selalu ke luar kawasan.
Dia dahulunya bertugas di syarikat yang sama denganku. Kemudian, dia mengambil keputusan untuk mencuba nasib di tempat baru. Beberapa bulan setelah bertukar kerja, aku ada bertemunya di One World Hotel, dia nampak gembira. Beratnya juga sudah bertambah, begitu ketara.
Setelah disahkan mengidap kanser, terbukti rakan yang seorang ini, begitu tabah orangnya. Walaupun hanya berhubung di Facebook dan email, nadanya sentiasa ceria. Dugaan demi dugaan dilalui tetapi tidak sesekali dia menulis tentang perkara-perkara yang negatif. Mungkin setiap kali dia berhubung dengan rakan-rakan, dia hanya ingin mereka gembira. Derita yang ditanggungnya, ditelan sendiri.
Beberapa orang rakan pergi menjengahnya di hospital ketika menerima rawatan. Semua mengatakan dia begitu kuat dan tabah. Jenaka dan gelak tawanya masih sama. Walaupun menanggung kesakitan, hanya dia yang tahu.
Kerap juga dia menulis tentang kesan-kesan sampingan rawatan yang diterima. Kesakitan sedemikian tidak dapat aku gambarkan. Aku hanya mampu mendoakan agar Allah permudahkan urusannya dunia dan akhirat.
Sejak seminggu lalu, aktivitinya di Facebook bagai terhenti. Rakan-rakan sedia maklum dia sedang menerima rawatan kemoterapi kitaran ke 6. Mengikut perancangan asal, dia sepatutnya menjalani pemindahan sumsum tulang beberapa minggu lepas, tetapi terpaksa ditangguhkan kerana doktor mendapati pendermanya kurang sesuai.
Bila tiada update di Facebook, kami sudah faham, pasti rawatan kali ini lebih sukar daripada sebelumnya.
Namun, aku tidak sesekali menduga kali ini dugaannya terlalu hebat dan rakanku ini tewas akhirnya. Semalam, selesai solat Zuhur, aku menerima pesanan ringkas daripada seorang lagi teman tentang khabar sedih itu. Rakanku yang tabah telah pergi menemui Pencipta.
Hanya Al Fatihah dan doa mampu aku sedekahkan, agar Allah permudahkan juga urusannya di sana.
Aku doakan juga isteri dan 2 anak kecilnya yang belum mengerti apa-apa akan tabah dengan kehidupan baru, dimurahkan rezeki dan sentiasa dalam lindungan Allah.

My Big Brother - Part 4

I don't remember much of what happened in the rest of 1988. It was such a blur now, maybe because I chose to just delete some of the bad memories I had. In the few months that followed the disappearance of my late brother, we had to answer to the same questions over and over again, 'Dah jumpa Zul?', 'Mana peginya Zul?', 'Apa salahnya sampai dia lari?', 'Dia merajuk ke?', 'Dia frust bercinta ke?','Zul takde talipon?'. For me it was so frustrating because we couldn't answer any of those. The standard reply given by my parents was, 'Entohlah, dengor ceritanya dah nyeberang laut. Kome doakan dia selamat ajelah.'

It took sometime for my family to investigate the real reason why he disappeared. The nearest answer we got was he was probably in trouble due to one of his hobbies - which involved spending a lot of money. A few weeks after we realized he had gone missing a few people came forward to inform my father that my eldest brother owed them some money. So, my father went to ask further to find out how many people and how much money he owed. The total debt was actually not that much - well let's just say it was not something that we couldn't afford to pay and my father did pay-off all of them. For me, it still didn't make sense for him to leave everything and everyone he loved and disappear just because of some debt issue.

We couldn't investigate and probe further as there were no sufficient evidence. Although my late brother was a warm and friendly person, he's also good at keeping his private things from people. At the time of his disappearance we had no idea how much money he had or whether he had them stashed away in some bank accounts unknown to us.

Sometimes, after dinner we would sit down in my mom's room to chit chat and we'd always discuss about him. We kept on guessing where he's gone. Once I told my father that I thought he might have flown or sailed to The US. If I were him, with all that talent, skills and brain, I would have gone to a place far away; a developed country that offered mountains of opportunities. My father didn't really agree.

As for my mom, she was still hoping that my brother hadn't gone that far away. My mom visited me in JB quite often; she took the night train and arrived at my hostel at around 6a.m and then went back late in the afternoon to catch the night train to East Coast. She also went to Singapore during one of the visits. Years later she admitted that everytime she was roaming in JB she hoped to bump into my eldest brother. Well that explained why she always left my hostel at 5pm when her train only arrived at 9pm.

So, 1988 had been a dark year and it was not something we want to relive. The following year my second brother decided to get married and the family was happy again, not the same, but I consider those were quite happy moments. To have additional family member, and later a baby boy joined us in 1990, followed by another sister in law when my third brother got married on the same year. We still discussed about my eldest brother from time to time but we have stopped guessing or cracking our heads to come up with theories on why he left.

Then, not long after my first nephew was born, my eldest brother called home. He was in Labuan. Not The US, but Labuan. So, Tokki Jelani was right, he did cross the ocean. I can't really remember what made him changed his mind and contact us but I think one of our relatives who was then staying in Labuan bumped into him. Maybe she managed to influence him a bit. I was not at home when he called. My mom told me about it during one of her visits. Although he called home to tell us that he was alive and well, we still didn't know the real reason why he left. We lost contact soon after because he decided to disappear again. We didn't have his number or his address and his IC was still using our kampung address. So, we couldn't trace him back then, not in the year 1990.

..... to be continued....

My Big Brother - Part 3

My late brother, Zulkiflie Sulaiman was our source for entertainment back in the 70s and 80s. I still remember the cassettes and cartridges he bought and we had battery powered players. There was no electricity supply in our kampung back in the 70s and early 80s. So when I was about 4 or 5 years old, we'd sat together in my brother's room and listened to the songs. My favorites then were Boney M, Latiff Ibrahim, ABBA and a few compilation albums which I couldn't remember the titles but some of the songs were Sunny, Designer Music, Ring My Bell, Get Down On It, That's The Way (I like it) from singers never heard by today's teenagers.

When I was in Standard 2 (1982) my late brother brought home a borrowed VCR player and rented a few video tapes. That weekend we watched a very interesting Malay movie: MEKANIK. We had been watching too many black and white P Ramlee movies on TV1 and TV2 that when we first saw MEKANIKwe thought it was very refreshing and exciting. When I watched that movie again on YouTube recently, I realized that some of the scenes would have been snipped by Censor Board if it were to be screened today. There's one scene where Teh Faridah was looking so sexy in the rain wearing a wet white shirt and a Hindi song was played. My mom heard it and said, 'Eh, lagu Bobby.' My brother and I were so young and had never heard of the movie Bobby then, so we asked many questions to my mom. The next weekend my late brother rented Bobby and we watched it 7 times.

My late brother was born a people person. He just loved making people happy, being around many people and interacting. Every Ramadhan, he would be our master stirrer when it was making dodol time. My late grandma or my mom would be the mastermind, measuring the flour, sugar and coconut milk but my late brother would be the one to slave himself near the hot kawah, stirring and stirring until the dodol was ready. He'd do the same when it was making lemang day. He'd patiently wait near the fire and when my late grandma told him it's time to turn or stomp the bamboo, he'd do it one by one. He just enjoyed doing those things while chit chatting with my late grandma to get more tips and listened to some of her pre-Japanese occupancy stories.

I have to say that my late brother really enjoyed everything he did, he's always spending his quality time with the family and cared for us a lot. He's the eldest, so it's not a surprise.

The only surprise I got was in 1988 when I came home for a short school break. I didn't take the train because on of my juniors was going back to Temerloh in her dad's car. I made a thick face to tumpang her. It was a smooth journey and I was so happy I didn't have to stand for 8 hours in the MEL train. But when I reached home, my late father broke the sad news. My eldest brother ran away from home.

I couldn't think or react when I listened to my late father telling me how my brother left home one night, saying he's going to KL (he traveled to KL quite frequently, so it was not something that would make my mom suspicious ). Then, after a few days he didn't come back. He didn't go to work. He didn't apply for any leave. He was not contactable (those days belum ada handphone ye...) and none of his good friends knew his whereabout or what was he planned when he left for KL.

My family, especially my parents were worried sick. We couldn't figure out why he left so suddenly. My late father was having a very hard time then. He couldn't think of a single thing that he has done that might have offended my late brother, that could've make him decided to run away. Nobody knew if my late brother was having any problem either work related or personal. People from his office didn't notice anything weird about him, so did my family members. He just acted normal before he decided to leave.

My parents did what people would normally do ina  missing person's case. They contacted the authority and the  search started. Ports, airports and Department of Immigration confirmed that there was no record of my late brother leaving the country. Then my parents went to see a very old Indonesian man whom we knew had extra strong 6th sense - his name was Tokki Jelani. Tokki Jelani told my parents not to worry because my eldest brother was still alive then but he had crossed the ocean.

Tokki Jelani didn't tell whether it was Hindi Ocean, South China Sea, or Atlantic Ocean but we knew that by then my eldest brother had left us to be somewhere else. We're not sure whether he was running away from someone or something but deep inside we all knew that he would never come back to our kampung.

.....to be continued....

Terima kasih.... terima kasih.... terima kasih....

Once in a while I'd write about my friends (real life + online). I usually create some award (you might never have heard of) or just simply mention their names in this humble blog so that they know I appreciate them for being my friends.

This entry is for me to express my deepest gratitude to all online friends (some I know in real life too) who link to this blog. This blog is getting more hits from your links than from Google, innit and PPS. Yeay!!! Too many names to mention but I'm sure you know who you are.

I started blogging out of boredom after starting a new job. Soon after that I started making blogger friends and was introduced to a totally new world. Along the way, some has unofficially retired, some disappeared and most of my blogger friends are now hooked up at other networks/channel. However, the links to my blog remain and for that I thank you.

To all my blogger friends, keep on writing. Your story/view matters.

Iezabellazaamemeamadios - I just can't stop loving you

This is my MJ Song, MJ Moment entry whether you like it or not.... hehe.

It was 1987 and 'Bad' was just released. We spent hours listening to the cassette in our friend's dorm. It was the 3rd term, final exam was over and we were all eagerly waiting for the dorm party.

Back then in STF, each third term's closure was the famous dorm party. Those were the old days when nobody really cared whether you wear tudung in the school/hostel. We watched Singapore TV until very late. Seniors were responsible to 'lecture' juniors whom they thought were not behaving according to the written/unwritten hostel rules. Short skirts (with slits) were acceptable (unless you need to go and see PSJ).

That year, Iezabellazaamemeamadios (that's C-8's glamorous name) juniors were told to perform during dorm party. We all sucked at singing and the time given was too short to put up a play, so we decided to dance to MJ's songs. We agreed on two songs from the album Bad; fast song was 'Bad' while slow song was 'I just can't stop loving you'.

Kak Q (Nor Naquiah), Kak Inn (Zuraini Azura), Paie and I worked together for choreography. I think we practiced for about a week for both songs. Kak Sam (Siti Aminah Ghazali) was not that keen to perform, tried to get away with it as she claimed she's too 'kejang' for dance moves (the picture below actually proved it). She was giggling throughout our practice sessions and was still giggling during the real performance. Her partner during the slow song was Andrilawati and it didn't help much as she's easily infected by Kak Sam's laughter.

We had to resort to using the easiest steps possible for the slow dance. Kak Inn wanted it to be hot and steamy but hey, all of us were under 18 and couldn't risk getting dorm party banned by the school after that night. The steps for Bad were almost similar to the video clip (minus the gangsters, fire and crotch grabbing, of course).

C-8 seniors gave us a really big hand (and lotsa hugs too) that night for our effort and 'energetic' performance. Kak Sam and Andri actually wasted a lot of energy after their non stop giggling, but everybody had so much fun that night.

R-L: Kak Sam, Andri (hidden), me, Kak Q, Ella, Kak Nonie, Paie and Kak Inn slow dancing to 'I just can't stop loving you' about 22 years ago.

1987 Iezabellazaamemeamadios. The juniors + Kak Su, Kak Zie, Kak Akmar, Kak Effa, Kak Zura and Kak Ros.

'I just can't stop loving you' later became one of my favorite songs during Valentine. Listen to it and you'll be reminded of how simple and beautiful love could be.

Some youtube videos for those who have never heard the song. This is the English version while this is the one with rare French lyrics.

While you're at it, do check out this clip to reminisce the good old 80's. It's loaded with 80's Hollywood celeb. It's a unique video and I think this is exactly how everyone feels trying to cope with this great loss. Deep down, don't we all still hope that it's just another publicity trick?

Thanks for the music and inspiration MJ. You are one unforgettable King and trend setter.