Of Ayah, Bapak and A Father

I grew up without a father - he abandoned a pregnant wife for a girlfriend - and that coloured my perception of men ever since. I know it's unfair, tarring all men with the same brush, but the pain never healed for Mak. Neither does it, for me.

I have no wish to speak ill of the dead. Suffice to say, that one single act of betrayal has lasting consequences.

The man I called 'Ayah' (father) all my life until he died some 15 years ago was my step-grandfather. He was the kindly man my grandmother married upon the untimely death of her first husband, of high fever, during the Japanese Occupation.

My grandfather's death at 24 left grandma a widow in her early 20s, with four young children; the youngest, a baby. She took to sewing, renting a stall in the Kota Baru market, to feed those kids. That was where Ayah met her.

I was foisted upon the couple at the age of nine days. My grandmother, not one to conceal things, never spared the details of how I ended up in their care.

But I never worked up enough courage to ask my mother about it. She knew that I knew, and that was that. There was nothing left to be said between us.

I loved my mother dearly and couldn't even begin to imagine how much she was hurting, how emotionally tormented she must have been, when she did what she did.

In the 1950s, there still wasn't a name to post-natal depression. Women were supposed to give birth and get on with life. Depression was considered part and parcel of the whole birthing process. So what's a little mood swing?

But consider this. She was hardly 20, with two children aged two and one, and the third on the way. Three months into her pregnancy, her husband upped and left for an old flame. He never returned.

And when she finally gave birth, abandoned, unloved and alone, who could have faulted her if she snapped? And snapped she did. Many women have lost it for less.

Grandma said she went to the market one morning and left me, then nine days old, in the care of Mak. I must have fretted or cried, like all babies are wont to do, when she calmly submerged me in a tubful of water and held me down.

Grandma said she arrived home just in time. "Kalau awak tak mau dia, bagilah kat Cek, biar Cek bela." (If you don't want her, let me have her). Those were Grandma's words. And that was how I ended up being a spoilt brat for the next 15 years of my life.

The 'surat cerai' (divorce papers) came via mail three months after she delivered, by which time my mother, a stunning beauty in her heyday, had a suitor.

The young bachelor married her in due course, taking her second son and raising him as his own from the onset of their married life together. They were blessed with five beautiful daughters, my dearest sisters.

The couple did live happily ever after. The marriage lasted more than 40 years, until Bapak died peacefully in his sleep 10 years ago. Mak passed away in May this year.

As for my biological dad, he did marry the erstwhile girlfriend and they were blessed with five sons.

Sadly, much as I tried, I could never muster any feeling of affection for him. I was numb emotionally. He broke my heart before I even saw the light of day. I forgave, but forgetting was well nigh impossible.

He remained distant in my life, even when he was close, physically. I respected him as a father, however miniscule his contribution to my upbringing (well, it was nil). I didn't respect him as a man. On both scores, I never wavered.

I visited him and his wife occasionally, so that the children could get acquainted with their grandpa and step-grandma. But that was just about it. I was dead inside. I shed the customary tears at his funeral, but I didn't and couldn't (and perhaps, with total honesty, wouldn't) grieve.

May Allah (swt) forgive me for my heart of stone.