Mak Cak – Mak Timah The Midwife, the Guardian, the Flame
The most unforgettable character in my life, I must admit, was my eldest aunt, known to the family as Mak Cak, and to the community at large as Mak Timah Bidan—Mak Timah the Midwife.
She was an adopted child. Though Malay by name, she looked more Indian than Malay, and it was whispered she was originally from Sudan. She had the kind of sweet, commanding presence that made you pause—a beauty like many Sudanese women, dignified and gentle, but firm.
Mak Cak delivered my twin brother and me into this world, barely a week after giving birth to her own son.
Respected. Feared. Revered. Children ran from her, and adults stood when she entered. But underneath that fear was deep admiration. In the kampung of Sungai Pinang, she was a pillar, a guide, a protector of life itself. She didn’t just deliver babies—she delivered communities.
Malay, Chinese, Hindu—whoever needed her, she answered. No time of day is too late, no place too far. In those days, her services were paid in rice, coconuts, pengkeras, sometimes a sarong or, if the family could afford it, a few ringgit. But rarely did any of it make its way home. She would distribute what she had to others in need along her path.
She was, to me, an angel of mercy.
Given up for adoption as a newborn, I was weaned by her. She had just delivered her own child, and I believe something of her passed into me through that bond. A part of her spirit lives in me. I also believe my spiritual stirrings—those awakenings that would guide much of my life—began with her.
Being a midwife in the 1940s, in a kampung scattered among mangrove swamps with no electricity, was no easy life. She would walk in darkness, alone, to deliver children into the world. Sometimes, there were multiple births in a single night. She told us stories—of the nine guardian spirits of the village—half to scare us, half to protect. Her rokok daun was always lit, the smoke curling around her like incense around a shrine.
There was a time when racial tension flared between neighboring Chinese and Malay villages, on the brink of bloodshed. It was my Aunt, together with the Tok Penghulu and a few elders, who defused the violence. It was said that only she was allowed to enter the Chinese enclave during those dark days. Her reputation cut across lines.
Later, in my teens, when I returned to Penang after nearly a decade in Terengganu, I would ride her pillion on my motorcycle every evening to visit her friend, a bomoh in Balik Pulau. I became her quiet witness. I heard things, saw things—unexplainable things. It was as if she were continuing to initiate me into a deeper world. A world she never shared with her seven children.
“You could have died,” she once told me, matter-of-factly.
“I thought there was only one baby. I was prepared for one.
When your mother started bleeding, I thought she was hemorrhaging.
And then… to my horror… There was you.”
That story, told without fanfare, stayed with me. Not as a wound. But as a sign.
I was not planned. But I was meant.
In her final days, Mak Cak lay suffering from cancer. For seven days, people kept vigil. Malays, Chinese, Hindus—all gathered quietly at her bedside, each praying in their own way. The air was heavy with reverence.
When she was carried to her grave at Dato Kramat cemetery, the procession that followed her body was said to be the longest Penang had ever seen, even surpassing that of the first Prime Minister, who was also from Penang.
The government awarded her the title of Justice of the Peace. Politicians courted her influence, using her name to gather support from the grassroots. But she remained who she was: unbought, unmoved by titles.
Her home had become a halfway house for the destitute and homeless—a fact that often irritated her own family. Strangers were fed, clothed, and sheltered under her roof. Compassion was her practice. Service was her dharma.
That was my Aunt.
That was Mak Cak, Mak Timah Bidan.
The most unforgettable character in my life.
A woman who held the power to bring life into this world—and carried, quietly, the wisdom to guide souls through it.
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