Late Father Would Be 92

Today is my late father, Zainuddin Udin's birthday. He would be 92 today (18 September 1924). Thanks to my sister who reminded us.

Here is a picture of him while he was young.

This was way before I was born. My fond memories of him was how he would like to keep everything is in order in the house. He would do the dust cleaning despite that he has severe asthma. I remembered the day he would travel all the way from Batu Gajah with his Lambretta scooter (we didn't have a car) to fetch me at the boarding school at Bukit Mertajam whith is roughly 165km away. By the end of the trip he would have a severe asthma attack. The sacrifice of my loving father. This is of course when it was my early days at the boarding school, noting that I had never left home all the years before that. Later, I learned how to take the train from Bukit Mertajam to Batu Gajah and back.

I was never at home that much since the boarding school days. Right after school, I was sent to Adelaide for Matriculation and B.Sc. (Hons.) degree. After coming back, I was in a teacher's college (Maktab Perguruan Sri Temenggung Ibrahim) briefly since I was on Ministry of Education scholarship but then the contract got transferred to UPM which I joined way back in 1985 as a tutor. After about a year, I went to UK first to Cambridge (Part III of Mathematical Tripos) then to Durham for PhD. So I missed being around him at home. When I went to UK, I had this photo of him and mum's in my wallet until now.

These were taken, I believe, sometime before they perform their haj. While I was in UK, I didn't know that my father's health deteriorated (he had heart problems, high blood pressure and diabetes). I went back home from UK on 1st November 1990. On touching down, my family rushed us to the hospital to meet my dad. He saw me and I can't quite remember whether we spoke to each other. The next day, we received the call that he had passed away (2 November 1990).

While I'm very much grateful being able to see him in time, I sincerely wished that I could spent more time with him. The best thing I can do for both my parents is now to include them in my doa after my prayers:

رَبِّ اغْفِرْ لِيْ وَلِوَالِدَيَّ وَارْحَمْهُمَا كَمَا رَبَّيَانِيْ صَغِيْرًا

May Allah bless their souls and let them be among the righteous. Al-Fatihah.