I was on morning duty, preparing to hand over to the afternoon staff, when the emergency staff nurse called to say my father was on his way to the ICU. Miriam had phoned earlier, worried.
Dad had complained of chest discomfort, a heaviness pressing over his heart, and shortness of breath. I didn’t waste time. I arranged for an ambulance to bring him straight to the hospital.
By the time I arrived, Mom and Miriam were already waiting outside the ICU. My brother called from camp, saying he’d come tonight.When I stepped inside, my heart sank. Dad looked frightened more frightened than I had ever seen him. The nasal oxygen prongs pressed into his nostrils, ECG leads sprawled across his chest, an intravenous line taped to his arm.
For anyone, it would have been overwhelming for him, it was his first time in a hospital bed.All my life, he had avoided hospitals. He brushed off medical checkups, no matter how much I nagged him.
“Doctors are for the sick,” he’d say. “I’m fine.”
And for the most part, he was. Just headaches, colds, the occasional flu. If anything lingered, we went to our family doctor, never the hospital. Once, when he was too weak to stand, we called the doctor to the house.
The doctor warned that if Dad didn’t improve in 24 hours, he must go to hospital. But by the next day, he was up on his feet again, as though nothing had happened. Now, seeing him in ICU for the first time, hooked to machines and looking small against the sheets, I realised how fragile he had become.
Working in a hospital, I’d heard every excuse patients gave to avoid admission. So I wasn’t surprised at the stories Dad used to come up with. To him, hospitals were like war zones once you went in, you could never be sure you’d come out whole again. Dramatic, yes, but to him the fear was real.
Now, lying in ICU for the first time, he clung to that fear. “I don’t want to stay here,” he kept saying. “I want to go home.”
I pulled a chair close, sat by his side, and held his hand tightly. “Stay, just for now,” I told him. “I’ll be here with you the whole day, if I have to. I won’t leave you.”
Only then did he nod, reluctantly agreeing to remain until he was strong enough for transfer. The ICU Nursing Officer told me the cardiologist was on his way. I signed for three days of emergency leave so I could be by his side.“It’s only a mild attack,” the cardiologist later reassured me, “but it still needs careful monitoring.”
He listed the tests — cardiac enzymes, chest X-ray, echocardiogram. From the ECG, he pointed out the left bundle branch block, a sign of possible obstruction. Dad would need further investigations to confirm the diagnosis and the extent of the blockage.I listened, nodding like the nurse I was but inside, I was just a daughter, frightened by the thought that my father’s heart, once so steady, had betrayed him.
Suresh came often to visit Dad, and to keep me company too. He had just started his night classes. At first, he was full of doubts, worried that after years away from school he wouldn’t be able to keep up.
I convinced him otherwise. “We’ll go back to school together,” I said. And we did. He registered for the full A levels, while I enrolled only for Literature and History. I already had my certificate, but this time I wanted to push myself further.
I had scored an ‘A’ in Malay Literature before now I wanted to try English Literature even if my English wasn’t fantastic. For History, I chose Modern Southeast Asia.
On the days he was tied up with training, I brought my little tape recorder to class and taped the lessons so he wouldn’t fall behind. Weekends we spent at East Coast, sitting under the trees with our books spread out, revising side by side.
I remembered the first time I took my A levels. I was struggling then, trying to balance shifts and studies. Out of the blue, Suresh appeared one evening with a stack of notes, dropping them on the table in front of me.
“Where on earth did you get these?” I asked, flipping through the bundle. To my delight, it was Economics, General Paper, and History notes and not tiger prawns.
“They’re from my officers,” he grinned. “Several of them have sat for A levels. I asked if they’d lend me their notes. Think they’ll be useful?”
“Useful? They’re gold!” I laughed. “How can I ever thank you?”
“No thank you,” he said firmly. “Just study. Now there’s no reason for you to complain.
Finish what you’ve started. Never give up halfway.”
And I didn’t. Looking back, I sometimes think my passing had less to do with my own strength, and more with his belief in me. He was my quiet anchor. Without his persistence, I know I would never have made it through those years mornings in the ward, nights in the classroom, weekends buried in second-language classes, trading every holiday for hours in the library.
Balancing work and study was never easy, especially in the acute surgical ward. Morning duty was always the busiest there was no such thing as leaving early. By the time I stepped out at 4 p.m., reached home by 5, and snatched an hour of rest, it was already time to leave again.
Night classes started at 7 and stretched till 10, sometimes even 11. There were days I wanted to give up. The ward drained me, body and soul. Some evenings, as I changed out of my uniform, the thought came unbidden: I can’t do this anymore. And then the phone would ring.
“Are you going for class tonight?” Suresh’s voice on the other end.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m tired. I’m really tired. I don’t think I can go on.”
He never scolded, only pressed gently. “What’s wrong? You’re halfway through already. You can’t stop now. Get dressed. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
And he was waiting at the void deck, refusing to let me quit.
“You’ve got Economics tonight, right? That’s an important paper. You’re weakest in that subject you can’t afford to miss it. Come on. I’ll send you to class.”
He always found a way to make me laugh, to turn my exhaustion into something lighter. More importantly, he gave me back the faith I kept losing in myself.
So many nights I sat in class, glancing through the window to catch sight of that solitary figure waiting by the school gate until I was done. And each time I thought to myself: How can I not believe in myself when he believes in me?
He didn’t have to do any of it. But he did.This must be love.
I felt it was my turn to help him, to bring back the faith he sometimes lost in himself. He had done so much for me, been my strength when I doubted my own. I wanted to do the same for him.
The time we spent together was the most wonderful I had ever known. We hardly quarreled. I couldn’t imagine raising my voice at him and even when he disagreed with me, he never did it harshly. There was always a gentle way about him, a touch of humor folded into his words.
He’d make a joke, pull a face, or laugh at himself, and somehow the message still came through without ever leaving a sting. That was Suresh. He never had to force his presence he simply became the steady current in my life light when I was heavy, laughter when I was weary, and a quiet faith when I had none left for myself.
I wouldn’t call Suresh handsome in the conventional sense, but there was something about him that drew people in. His complexion was on the darker side, but he had the most beautiful smile one of those smiles that spilled over, infectious, making it impossible not to smile or laugh back when you saw it.He never cared much about appearances.
Where some men fussed over their looks, Suresh was the opposite. His jeans were worn thin, his T-shirts faded, his hair often unruly.
“So what if I’m messy? Do you think I’m messy?” he’d ask with mock seriousness.
“Yes, you are,” I’d reply, pretending to scold.
“When was the last time you washed those jeans? And that T-shirt is practically falling apart. Can’t you wear something better?”
He’d grin. “Well, since you like me this way, I shall remain messy.”
My mother once asked why he didn’t pay more attention to his dressing. “Sometimes he looks like he’s just rolled out of bed,” she said, shaking her head. I only laughed.
“That’s just him,” I told her. “And I don’t mind. He’s good to be around that’s what matters.”
Outside of our study sessions, I carried on with my swimming. Suresh tried hard to convince me to enter competitions. He said I’d improved my timing in the 100-metre freestyle, that I could win if I tried. But I refused.
I hated competition it spoiled the joy for me. We found joy in other adventures instead. Once, we went camping at Outward Bound School on Pulau Ubin, thanks to one of his friends who was a trainer there.
It was rough and simple, but it was wonderful. Together, with him and his friends, I felt a world opening beyond books and wards, a space where laughter and small triumphs mattered more than medals.
Several of Dad’s old colleagues reappeared when they heard he was hospitalised. One of them was a silat master, Pak Cik Shukor, who came with his four sons. I remembered glimpsing them back in our kampong days, but never paid much attention then. I had always known, vaguely, that my father practised silat in his youth but only now did I realise that this man was his teacher. Pak Cik Shukor had the kind of presence you couldn’t ignore: upright posture, sharp eyes that missed nothing, and a voice that carried even when he spoke softly.
His sons, tall and lean like trained fighters, hovered behind him in the corridor, grinning at me when I walked in. I had to laugh when they began trying to persuade me to take up silat.
“Me? Silat? That’s impossible,” I protested. “We don’t match at all.”
“And why not?” Pak Cik Shukor asked, his eyebrows raised. “Your father was my student.”
From the corner of my eye, I caught the sons whispering amongst themselves, and the words eldest daughter drifted to my ears, followed by muffled chuckles. I shot them a glare.
“I’ve tried many times to persuade her,” my father said, sighing heavily. “But she is not interested. What to do? Young people today have no wish to carry on tradition.”
I turned on him, scandalised. So this is a trap after all.Pak Cik Shukor shook his head gently.
“We cannot force them. It must be voluntary. But why not let Nithya come and see first? Watch us practise. Who knows? The interest might come naturally.”
He glanced at me, and my father immediately nodded in agreement. Both of them turned their expectant eyes on me. Reluctantly, I gave in.
“Fine. I’ll observe, only observe,” I emphasised.
“It’ll be useful anyway, since I’ve been researching silat rituals for the story I’m working on. And keris… well, you always associate the keris with silat.”
That seemed to satisfy them. My father immediately called one of the sons over, and the eldest agreed to ferry me to their training ground whenever my schedule allowed.
“We’ll work around your classes and duties,” he assured me with a smile. I wasn’t sure whether I had just agreed to a harmless observation… or been pulled deeper into something my father and Pak Cik Shukor had been plotting all along.
