Man with Heart of Gold - Will be Sorely Missed.

When he first made his appearance  at my elder brother's house to ask for my niece's hand in marriage he reminded me of a village buffoon  with his two sizes too small jacket and a shirt bursting at the buttons and it being a hot sizzling afternoon he looked like he was roasting. When he smiled his toothless smile my brother and I almost broke out laughing. My brother's wife was beside herself trying to look absolutely unhappy and hoping that this the nightmare would be gone.   

When my brother asked for my opinion I could not help but felt that this guy was genuine and that if my niece had loved him then he was best for her because he was for sure very much in love with her that he was willing to make the long trip from Penang to the East Coast to meet the parents. I told my brother that i felt safer giving up my niece to a 'this village idiot than any slick looking city boy and so it happened.  

They called him Cek Ark locally among friends and relatives and he was the best choice i could have helped to convince my brother and his wife to become their son in law. I came to love him more than I cared to admit myself as he was the most humble and down to earth much loved person I have ever met and during his funeral there were no less than three hundred people who came to pay their last respects including a Health Minister who knew him just from their chance meetings along the walks  they take or through the rice fields. I discovered that Ishak was a pillar in his society and work place of  well repected and loved as proven by the turnout at his funeral.

It is no doubt a brutal shock to most especially myself to have him taken away at  such a young age leaving behind three children my two grand nieces and grand nephew who had barely started walking. He spent only two days in the Intensive care Unit at the Penang General Hospital and i was there keeping my niece company so she did not loose herself  control from this burden of pain no one her age and status should be made to go through. On looking at his face when they brought his deceased body I saw a serene smile on him as though he was set free from some pain. When i asked the doctor at the Hospital what had caused him to die the doctor said that it was a virus that was too strong a strain that had made such a rapid attack upon almost all his vital organs all at once. I know i will miss him and I am very sad for my niece and her loss. But...Such Is!