Al-Fatihah

A long-time friend and neighbour of my close friend Linda passed away on Tuesday evening. She was only in her mid-30s.

According to Linda, her friend had had a sudden asthma attack at her home, collapsed and passed away right in front of her frantic 8-year old daughter.

Although I cannot claim to have known her intimately, I knew of her through the stories and anecdotes told by Linda.

We had also met on a number of occasions on a social basis.

From the stories I heard, I knew that she had an unhappy marriage. Her husband was a womaniser who regularly abused and neglected his wife and only child.

According to Linda, through it all, this resilient and cheerful woman had always managed to hide her pain, made a joke of it all and stayed positive.

After all, she had her “buah hati” – her only child and daughter, for whom she would have had willingly sacrificed anything to ensure the security and happiness of her small world.

Her passing and Linda’s outpouring of grief brought to mind fragments of the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow–

"Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence."

Linda regrets the fact that she took her friend for granted. In fact, all of us do - we incessantly take family, our friends, our loved ones and those who touch our lives for granted. And the sad fact is that we only realise the fact after they are taken away from us.

Like a ship that passed in the night, I may not have known her as closely as Linda may have did. In the rush of my everyday life, I must admit that I may not have spared her much thought at all.

But now that she's gone, I can't help it but to mourn for her.

As a wife, I mourn for her and the fact that she had never felt the joy of a happy marriage.

I mourn the fact that she had died alone, save for her daughter, without the presence of a loving husband.

As a mother, I mourn for her little orphaned daughter.

I mourn the fact that she had to go through the devastating experience alone without a father who should have been there for her.

And for the little girl, I wish only this… although no woman can ever replace the wonderful, selfless woman that carried her though pregnancy and nurtured her since infancy, I wish to heaven that her new mother-figure, no matter whom she may be, will be a loving, kind, and compassionate woman to the little girl whose beloved, secure world crumbled in front of her eyes last Tuesday evening.

Al-Fatihah.