In Memory

pak udin passed away
a text message from my sister few minutes ago. innalillahi wa inna ilaihi roji'un
ah pak udin. suddenly i remembered all the incidents we had with you. i just want to blog it down so that one day when i re-read this blog, i remember you.
pak udin was an 'ojek' driver near my place who happened to be my mom's friend's neighbour. since he can drive cars we contact him whenever we need an extra driver, especially when i'm home. mom always said, 'why waste your money for taxi, use pak udin. just make sure you show him the way'. and to no avail he would come whenever being called. with both dad and my brother in-law always out on business trip and the drivers living very far, pak udin was one of the person we can count on in terms of emergency. when our cat was sick we'd called him saying we need to go to the hospital. he would be at our place in few minutes time, thinking it was my nephew who was sick.
he was kind but he has some issues that makes dad kinda reluctant if we said pak udin would be the one driving the car. firstly he was totally direction-blind. apart from rawabelong area, don't ask him to go somewhere without navigating him. i think i know the way better eversince i engaged him. asked him to turn left on the next road before you see the road would end up with him missing the turn. 'ah, pak udin forget deh' would be his response. there was once we went to the shopping centre and he didn't know how to take the ticket from the machine. he was very blur that the locket officer kinda scolded him and asked him to get out of the car and retrieved the ticket itself. not that we didn't tell him to, he's simply blur and drove on when we asked him to stop and collect the ticket. and mind you, this happened again and again. normally there'll be some issue with the car whenever pak udin was done driving it. the water was dry or some other things. and the ultimate incident was when my sister went to taman anggrek. upon returned to the carpak, pak udin realised he locked the car and the key was still inside. he called dad asking how to get into the car now. dad who was annoyed asked him to enter through the knalpot (exhaust hole?). funny part was he took it seriously and asked my sister how could he do that. dad had to travel all the way to send the spare key when our reason for engaging him was not to disturb dad. eversince that incident dad always said 'try to find other driver first before engaging him'.
ah pak udin, that story always makes me smile. the last thing i heard was you were sick, pretty bad. mom always called and updated me on your well-being.i remember mum saying you cried when my younger sister gave you something from her first paycheck. you regard us as your own kids i know, especially my youngest sister who spent most of the journey with you. may you rest in peace and may all your kindness be rewarded by God.