The first man in my life

Today Abah turns 71. Being the only girl and the youngest in the family, I’ve always been Abah’s favourite. My childhood memory of him was me climbing into his lap after his prayers. I remember feeling secured and loved in his arms.

I think I have a picture of Abah and me, I was still a baby and my hair was growing while Abah was losing his. Needless to say, I’m the spitting image of him, down to my toes, just like Marissa is with Lan. No DNA testing needed.

Once I bumped into an old friend of Abah’s whom I’ve never met. He has never met me either. But immediately scanning my face, he said – “You must be Cikgu Mokhtar’s daughter.” To which I replied, “How did you know?”

“You’re the female version of him,” was his simple reply.

Abah, I may not say this often. I love you and you’re always been my moral compass. Back in the day when you were the principal of Princess Elizabeth School for the Blind, and I was too young to understand, I resented the fact that you refused to accept hampers sent to our house by the contractor who put up new fence at the school and routed them to the visually challenged children instead. Being a child myself, I was tempted by the scrumptious goodies packed up in shiny coloured semi transparent plastic. I still remembered what you said, “the contractor completed work for the school, not for our house. Thus the children deserves the hamper, not us,” was your explanation.

If only more people were like you…Happy Birthday.