The Budak Pantai gathered at the jetty to see me off. As the ferry engine rumbled to life, they waved, calling out across the water. I raised my camera and caught them in the frame, their smiles, their hands lifted high against the morning sun.
Snapshots of farewell. I promised I would return someday, and that I would tell my friends about them. Once I developed these pictures, I would mail them back. I could already imagine their excitement. I leaned against the railing, the island receding slowly behind me.
Pulau Pangkor had been more than just an assignment it had been a gift. A place of open smiles and stories, of fishermen and beach boys, of laughter and hidden truths. Lovely in its simplicity, unforgettable in its warmth. But all good things come to an end eventually.
And so, I looked forward to the journey home.I wasn’t sure what had come of Sharil and his mother’s visit and truthfully, I’d rather not think about it now. For the moment, he was in those suitcases, stowed away with the rest of the luggage. I’d asked the driver to place them in the holding bay, where they could remain untouched until I reached home.
Only then would I open them, unload their contents, and decide what to do with them. One thing I knew for certain: whatever I chose, I would not want to wound his mother. She had always been kind to me, and I truly liked her. She did not deserve to bear the brunt of his choices. The bus was only half full, though I knew more passengers would climb aboard once we reached Kuala Lumpur, and later again on the way through Johor.
From there I’d have to transfer to another bus to get home. But before I do that, I got another matter to look into. The driver stood up before we left, apologizing that both the radio and the little overhead TV were out of order. None of us minded. I had my Walkman and my tape recorder with me anyway. I tried to tune into the BBC, but the reception was poor, all static and broken syllables.
Even in Pangkor I hadn’t been able to pick up BBC or any Singapore stations. Strangely, though, the Voice of America came through loud and clear. I listened for a while, but soon grew tired of it. Too much propaganda, too many speeches pretending to be news. I switched over to the Malaysian channels, but the songs didn’t appeal to me either.
I gave up on the radio. Nothing seemed to fit, not the propaganda-heavy broadcasts from America, not the songs drifting from Malaysian stations. Restless, I remembered the tape recorder in my bag and pressed play.
Her voice filled my ears at once. “So tell me, why this obsession with death?” I had asked.
“It’s not an obsession,” she replied firmly. “It’s nursing, as far as I’m concerned. We call it Hospice Nursing. Just like any other branch, geriatric, psychiatric, medical-surgical, rehabilitation. Each has its own specialty, its own challenges. But the ultimate goal is always the same: the patient.”
“Yeah, but how can it be the same?” I argued. “Hospice nursing… all the patients eventually die. How can that be satisfying? To me it’s depressing. Last week one of our ex-patient came to visit us. A young man, he had been helping his father unload fruits and vegetables from a lorry when a drunk driver swept him off the road. When he was admitted, he was white as a corpse. We all thought he would not make it. But we got him to the OT for an emergency operation in time. The next morning, when we came on duty, there he was alive, on the bed, still weak but conscious. As we were about to sponge him, he opened his eyes and said the first thing on his mind: “Nurse, I have to go home… I must report to camp today.”
That’s the kind of dedication our national service boys have! I told him, “No, you’re not going anywhere. Give me your camp number and we’ll contact your medical officer.”
He did recover eventually. And just last week, he came back to see us, walking into the ward on his own two feet, shaking every one of our hands, thanking us over and over. He was so happy. And we were so happy to see him so well.
You see, that kind of happiness to help a patient survive, to see them walk out alive and then return to say thank you, that’s satisfaction to me. That’s what makes nursing worthwhile.”
“Ah! Our national service men!” her words as her eyes lighten up.
I sighed.
“You know what I really miss here in Mount Elizabeth? The presence of our NS boys. Here it’s rare to see them around. But in NUH, SGH, Changi, even Alex you’ll always have at least one in the ward, admitted for something. And it’s always such a pleasure having them. Don’t ask me why.” I raised an eyebrow, amused.
“You miss the presence of the national service men?” I laughed, realizing how it sounded.
“Yes lah! But not like that. They bring a kind of… energy. No matter how sick, there’s always that sense of discipline, humor, sometimes even mischief. They make the ward feel alive. You don’t get that here.”
The moment the words national service were mentioned, her whole face lit up, as if someone had flipped a switch. I watched her with quiet curiosity. Why did the mere mention of National Service light her up like that? It was as if the phrase itself carried a spark, stirring something deep inside her that she could never quite hide.
“You want to know why I chose hospice care?” she said suddenly, cutting across the conversation.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because nobody wants to talk about death.” Her voice was steady, but softer now. “We talk about living, about recovering, about going home. But death? Always taboo. In the old days, if someone was diagnosed with a terminal illness, the family would put them away. I’ve heard of cancer patients being left in homes, abandoned by their families. Not because they stopped loving them but because they couldn’t face it. To have terminal cancer was almost like having a contagious disease. Better to isolate, to hide. It is sad, isn’t it?”
She paused, then continued, more firmly. “Hospice is different. In hospice we don’t hide death. We talk about quality of life. About acceptance. About preparing for the eventual. We walk with the patient through every stage, denial, anger, bargaining, despair until at last they can say: I am ready to go. And when they reach that place… it is peaceful. It is profound.”
Her eyes glistened now, not with tears but with conviction. “That, to me, is what nursing is all about at this stage of my career. Not just patching wounds or chasing symptoms, but helping a person live until the very end. In the old Hippocratic tradition,” she went on, “doctors were told never to treat the incurably sick. It was seen as unethical as if they were trying to play God. But in hospice, we take the opposite view. Nobody is turned away. The message is simple: You matter because you are you, and you will matter until the very last moment of your life. And our duty is this not only to help you die peacefully, but to help you live fully, right up until you die.”
“Have you seen us during a resuscitation?” she asked, her eyes alive. “It’s like a battle. You’re fighting head-on with death. And like any battle, either you win or you lose. Win and the patient survives, goes to ICU, recovers. Lose: and the patient dies. And when you do win?”
She shook her head, a faint smile tugging her lips. “The rush… it’s indescribable. It makes you feel like you’ve done something powerful, almost heroic.”
I frowned. “But isn’t it a losing battle in the end? Who can ever beat death?”
“Of course it’s a losing battle,” she said softly. “But it depends on how you see it. If you think your job is to defeat death, you will always lose. Every time. But if you can embrace death, accept it as part of the whole, then it’s different. You stop running from it, stop fighting it. You work with it. And that—” she leaned closer, her voice steady “—that is the heart of hospice. Acceptance, not rejection. Guiding someone, not abandoning them.”
“There are many doctors who take risks,” she said. “They know the odds. They know that if they operate, the patient may not survive. But still they go ahead. Why? Because of hope. That’s what it all comes down to. Hope for a brighter future, hope for a little more time, hope for a chance at life. Everything we do, in one way or another, is about hope. example take me. I know I have cancer. I know, sooner or later, I will die. But still, I hold on to hope that the cancer might shrink, that it might disappear, that I might live a little longer. I want to see my children grow up. I want to see them married. That’s hope.There are stories, you’ve heard them too people told they had six months to live. And yet six months come and go, and they are still alive. Sometimes, the cancer is even gone. How do you explain that?War is a losing battle, yes. But still, people go to war. Why? Because even in war, people cling to hope.”
“What made me move towards hospice?” She leaned back, her voice quieter now, almost reflective. “Simple. I got tired of fighting battles. Like soldiers, you can’t keep going war after war. Eventually, you’re worn out.For me, it was experience. I’ve been there. I know what it feels like. I’ve stood at the edge and felt that rush, that temptation to play God. And now, I understand the saying: ‘when doctors play God.’
So one day I asked myself: what’s next? And I thought if I can’t beat death, then I’ll turn the tables. I’ll make people unafraid of it. Because that’s what terrifies us most, isn’t it? Death. We make it a taboo. We refuse to talk about it. But no matter how we avoid it, it comes for all of us.
And I realized once you face it, once you strip away that fear, you’re free. That’s what freedom is, at least to me. Not money. Not power. Freedom is when you have nothing left to fear.We live in a culture of fear. Fear of failure, fear of shame, fear even of our own shadows. We do so much too much out of fear. But if you confront it, if you put those fears to rest, then you can move to the next level. Only then can you truly be free.”
“Once, when I was younger, I lived on the 17th floor. There was this man, a supervisor with the cleaning services. Every day he ‘terrorized’ me. Whenever I saw him in the lift, I would refuse to step in. He knew I was afraid, and he enjoyed it. One day, he looked me straight in the face and said, ‘I will get you one day.’
Something in me snapped. I stood my ground, met his eyes, and said: ‘Then what you will get is my dead body. You think I won’t fight? I will fight, and I will make sure I leave a mark on you that will scar you for the rest of your life. And every time you see that mark, you will regret ever laying a hand on me.’ He was stunned. I saw the shock on his face. After that, he never try to inflict fear in me. In fact, he avoided me. Every time we crossed paths, he moved out of the way. He kept his distance. That day, I learned something: when you stare fear in the face and refuse to give it power, fear turns and runs.”
“I read a lot of articles once about people who’ve died and come back,” I said. “You have any thoughts about them?”
She shook her head. “Not sure. I can’t comment on things I have no knowledge of. But I’ll tell you this once I had a patient, a Malay Muslim man. I’d been following up with him for months, trying to arrange a place for him to go after discharge. His wife said she couldn’t care for him she was the only breadwinner, and they had no children. At that time there was no Muslim hospice home, and the only place willing to take him was Assisi. But he was terrified. He told me, ‘I don’t want to die in a Christian home, with a cross hanging above my bed.’ He was afraid they’d try to convert him. It took days of negotiation, but finally the home agreed to remove the cross from his room. Only then was he willing to go.I was supposed to personally transfer him there after my three days off. I’d spent so much time in the hospital, it felt like my first home. My parents were already complaining they hardly saw me anymore. So when I was off duty, I switched off my pager. Total incommunicado. No calls. No interruptions. For three days, I disappeared into myself. On the second night of my days off, I had a dream. He came knocking at my door.I was startled to see him, he looked so well, walking, his face calm. I tried to invite him inside, but he shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll just stand here.” He told me he had come to say goodbye. Said someone told him he could find me “here.” And then he turned and walked away, never once looking back. When I returned to the ward, I learned the truth: he had died that very night. His wife said he had been asking for me ever since he was transferred to the ICU, but nobody could reach me.So… did he come back to say goodbye to me? I believe he did.
There was another patient a lady named Merlene. I had nursed her for months, and over that time we became deeply attached. Two weeks after she died, I had a dream.In the dream, my pager went off. I answered, and it was her. Merlene. Her voice was calm, almost joyful. She told me that “they” had asked her to wait in a garden. A beautiful garden, she said, and before she moved on, she wanted to talk to me to say goodbye.
A few days later, I attended her memorial service. As I spoke with her family and friends, I learned something that made me pause: three of us had dreamt the same thing. Her brother. Her best friend. And me. Coincidence? Maybe. But standing there, listening to their stories, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Merlene had indeed reached out one last time, to those who mattered most.
“These are my experiences with my patients. One thing I’ve learned is that every time a patient dies… they take a piece of me with them. It feels as if something inside me is ripped away. It’s like when you fall and scrape your skin. A superficial abrasion. You clean it, apply lotion, let it dry. It doesn’t hurt exactly not sharp pain just a raw numbness. That’s how it is for me. Each death leaves that kind of mark.
In those moments, all I want is silence. To switch off, to withdraw. I don’t want to talk to anyone or see anyone. I just need to be alone, to let myself recharge. And then, when the wound has dried over, the cycle begins again. And then, one day, you realize you cannot keep doing this forever. You cannot keep giving pieces of yourself away. You have to let go, and allow new people to take over. That is the natural way of things. That is where I am now. At this stage of my life, I know I will leave nursing one day. I don’t yet know where I’ll go, or what I’ll become… only that there will be another phase, another path waiting. And when the time comes, I will move on.”
I must have dozed off, because the next thing I heard was the driver’s voice calling out: “Kuala Lumpur!”
I stirred, gathering my things. This was where I had to get off. The bus would continue on to JB or Singapore, but my journey wasn’t finished yet. Not here. Not now.
Why KL? That wasn’t for anyone else to know not yet. What mattered was that I had a meeting to attend, something already set in motion long before this trip. My next bus to Singapore wouldn’t leave until 11:30 p.m., which gave my hours to fill. I decided to leave my suitcase at the left luggage counter in Pudu, free myself from the weight, and collect it later.
For now, all I am will carry was my small bag and the tape recorder, plus the knowledge that I had someone/ some group of people to meet in this city.
