Farewell to a friend

Received these messages from a friend,

"kawan kita meninggal mlm td kul 9 mlm eksiden kat KL. arwah FZD. tlg bgtau kawan2. ari ni kebumi kat bkt katil melaka. From: Abu S. 7:43am 1-Feb-05"

"FZD meninggal, accident motor, ada kat hospital universiti, call GTR 4 d detail at <012***>. From: Abu S. 7.45am 1-Feb-05"

I was driving back from sending off my daughter to school when the messages came in. I was stunned. shocked. Wanted to call Abu to verify but that'd not be necessary. I'm sure he would not be playing jokes on this one. Took a while to recover from the initial shock. All thoughts about him came rushing to my mind. I have a lot of memories with FZD. We were classmates from form 1 all the way to form 5 and had spent 5 wonderful years in SDAR. He was good in hockey and played rugby for the school. Was popular among the seniors. Didn't expect to lose a dear friend a day after celebrating my 36th birthday.

Quickly forwarded the messages to other friends. I was surprised that none of my friends called me to verify or asked for further details. Perhaps they were also stunned with the news. Only at about noon Kamal called and we agreed to organise collecting contributions to be forwarded to the family of arwah.

Later, some details trickling in our yahoo e-groups:

aku, LNDL, GTR, guntur dan beberapa lagi kawan kita sempat pergi menziarahi arwah sebelum dikebumikan. menurut landol injuries mostly to the body. arwah was hit and thrown to the opposite lane before being hit by another vehicle. this happened somewhere along LDP near puchong. arwah left behind a wife and 4 beautiful kids. semoga Allah mencucuri rahmat ke atas rohnya.

Another friend wrote,

aku tak leh tido malam tadi mengenangkan arwah, terbayang2 muka dia ditambahkan lagi dengan tangisan anak dia yg paling kecik yg dok jerit "ayah..ayah.." masa arwah sedang dikafankan. Mak dia cium pipi arwah bagai tak nak lepas sampaikan bapa dia cakap "cukup lah tu Ibu...". Alhamdulillah aku sampai ngam2 lepas jenazah baru mandi, dia orang tengah lap dan sikat rambut arwah yg panjang. Kepala dan muka tak de apa2 injury may be becoz arwah pakai fullface helmet. Aku tak sanggup nak selak kain ihram yg diguna untuk lapkan arwah sebab cousin dia kata, bahagian rusuk kanan sampai ke peha dia hancur. Aku sempat tolong angkat arwah dari tempat mandi ke ruang tamu untuk dikafankan. Saat tu le aku tak perasan yg air mata aku rupanya dah meleleh ke pipi bila tengok isteri dia, mak dia, nenek dia dan anak2 dia menatap wajah arwah untuk kali terakhir.

Alhamdulillah jugak, arwah disembahyangkan sebanyak 2 kali, sekali dirumah dan sekali di masjid. Di masjid, sembahyang jenazah diimamkan oleh YDP PAS Melaka iaitu Ustaz Ghani Abd Rahman. Semasa talkin dibacakan di kubur, Ketua Menteri Melaka Datuk Ali Rustam muncul. Setakat yg aku tahu, selain aku, member2 yg sempat sampai ialah TLK,GTR, AYM, BB, LCK, KDK, KYI dan UP. May be ada yg sampai after 3pm , aku sendiri tak sempat jumpa UP.

Al Fatihah. Semoga Allah mencucuri rahamatNya dan menempatkan arwah bersama orang2 yang beriman.