13 years ago, i was a little girl with not much responsibility than sitting for my UPSR exam. my mom was pregnant that time, together with her two sisters. i used to see them talking to each other about their pregnancies.
one fine day on 9th june 1994, i woke up and saw my mom looked very weird. she wasn’t get up from bed, didn’t talk any word and gave me a strange look. my dad brought her into the washroom, bathed her and dressed her up. but mom was very dull and cold. her sight was very blank.
my dad told me that he’s going to bring mom to the hospital. yet we still didn’t know the reason. and i went to school as usual.
when i came back after school, i got a call from my dad. he said that my mom was going to operation theater to get the baby out from her womb.
actually my mom had a pregnancy induced hypertension, that caused her a great headache all night long, but my dad wasn’t home last nite, went out for some political election activity. when my dad came home at 2 a.m., she taught it was too late at night and my dad was too tired to be woke up. then she tried to bear the pain until the morning, but…
dad said there’s no other way to save either one, my mom and the baby rather than an emergency c-section. and my mom had some renjatan and that means if the baby hold longer, it might harm both of them.
somewhere at 4.30 pm i guess, my uncle called me, congratulated for another baby boy in the family! 2 month earlier than expected, but it was a very happy news for us after my little brother’s birth 5 years back.
the next day, a weekend. i was in my room, sleeping and i saw my dad went around in the house and heard a bit noise in the living room. i heard about “baby’s bedding set”, and it wondered me. what to do with the bed set? isn’t at hospital they have all those things to accommodate babies? or, is my brother already taken home? does he need to be kept in incubator for his pre-matured birth?
finally i went out. my grandma was in the living room. i saw something wrapped in my dad’s pelikat, on the baby’s bedding set that my mom bought few weeks back.
“nenek, apa ni?” i asked my gradma.
“adik” she answered.
“kenape..?”
“meninggal”
i didn’t remember how sad i was. but it was really miserable. i ran into my room and wept. my dad came and tried to calm me down. “don’t cry” he said. but i saw tears in his eyes, he cried too.
i couldn’t stand to see my little brother’s ceremony before funeral (mandi, kafan, etc). but my dad asked me to see him. for the first and last time. he was very small, about 39cm long and weighted 1.1kg. he was so pale and fair, might be because of his blood circulation was already stopped. some said that he looked like my sister, fair and very cute.
however, i didn’t follow them to the cemetery yard. i never see any funeral before and i was too afraid to go to the cemetery – takut hantu kubur (i was very stupid back then).
i didn’t know my sister and brothers understand or not. but i really felt the loss. that nite, i asked my dad, what was the name of the baby. he said, he named him Muhammad Syazwan.
my dad told us to not telling our mom about Syazwan’s death. he said, the death might be because of the trauma he had since my mom had the very hypertension and the renjatan. his lungs became weaken and most of his organs malfunctioned. afterall, a 28 week fetus would be able to survive.
the next day, we went to the hospital to see mom. she was in a great depress. we tried to shut our mouth from telling her about the departure of our Late Syazwan. but then she said, she already knew about the death, since the nurse took away the tag from her. and my little brother (be a little one again) kept on telling her about the baby’s condition… blacked hands, very small, very pale, etc.
i don’t know how a mom feel about her child loss. but as a big sister, i felt so sad. i had a friend who the mother was expecting too, and we used to talk about our future brother/sister. and after that i had nothing left to talk. and when my aunties gave birth, we felt a bit jealous, our brother went off already, after only 11 hours of survival.
today, after 13 years, everysingle tear we had, left as a memory and a tomb for us to visit every aidilfitri. and the sad memory erased by the naughtiness of your latest uncle who was born 5 years later. hmm.. this just triggered since you are 28 week now 🙂 and i expect you to be a very healthy 39cm and 1.1kg boy, like your late uncle did at his 28week!
**al-Fatihah to Muhammad Syazwan bin Noh (9Jun-10Jun 1994).
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