TmNet

I was in Malacca over the weekend and I wanted to cancel my dad's internet account.. I have my own, my bro has his own etc...

So I call TM Net and I tell them that my dad is no longer here and I need to cancel...

"procedure-nya senang, you suruh bapa you datang ke TmPoint dan bawa IC"

"eh, baru saya cakap dia dah meninggal, amacam dia nak datang ke TmPoint?"

DOH

Catching up...

It's been a week since I blogged.. been catching up with things...

Firstly, my son's new school timing is quite tough on me.. I need to wake up at 530am to leave the house by 7am to reach his school by 730am. Imagine.. if I had calls ending at 2am? Koyak.

I've also been trying to adjust with life without my dad. Ok.. so my dad doesn't live with me.. but he used to live with my mom in Malacca and he was quite a handy man so my mom feels very lost without him. How to turn on the Astro ah? Aiyo.. the tap burst, how ah? Aiyo, how to pay the water bill ah? Mundane things that freak my mom out. Yes, I've been coaxing her to come up to KL but she's very sentimental with Malacca.. it takes time...

My dad also passed away without a will. My dad was an ultimate pantang person. Don't talk abt death to him. He will karate chop you! So any discussions about will or planning used to be greeted with stares of icy chilling cold. Seram!

When my dad passed, my bro and I had a couple of days window to faster scrummage thru his things, get his bank books, ATM cards and we had to decipher what PIN nos he used etc etc... all before his orbiturary came out... luckily we managed to get most out.. but the motorbike (very old Honda C70), car (very old Mitsubishi Galant) and house all is under his name. That's the next big headache.. how do we get the grant transferred over to my mom.

So last weekend, I came back to Malacca to be with my mom. The house felt empty. But my mom tells me that her neighbour a few nights ago spotted someone with a cap on a bicycle in front of our house in the wee hours of the morning! For those of you who know my dad, that sounded really like him! I am glad my dad is back and happily pursuing is favourite pastime of cycling around...

Back to School

I am back in KL and today my son started his new journey in a new school. In this, it calls for some changes for me too.

In the past, my son was in the afternoon school. This time, his school is in the morning.. so my son had to wrestle with waking up at 545am to be at his school by 730am. This is also a struggle for me as I also tend to work late with calls till late. Imagine that.. if my last call ends at 2am, i have hardly enuff sleep before having to wake up at 530am to prepare my son for school.

Indeed a challenge! The first day wasn't too bad.. but lets see how long I can tahan!

Thanks to all

I would like to take a few moments to thank those of you who made the trip to Malacca to pay respect to my father. It was a simple gesture, yet it meant a lot to me. Thank You

Cremation

My father's cremation will be today, 8th June, leaving the parlour oppossite Seck Kia Eenh at 11am. Just a short note for those of you following these last few week's blogs.

Receiving my father

My father came back to Malaysia today. His plane arrived around 240pm and by the time we got him out of the cargo it was already almost 6pm. It is now 945pm. He is now on his way back from Sungai Besi, to arrive at the parlour around 1045pm - 11pm. His wake will be tomorrow, with his final sending off on Friday.

The parlour is at 46 Jalan Gajah Berang, for those of you who know my father, accounting teacher of St. Francis Institution, camera enthusiast, travel addict and a father and husband.

Values

Today was an emotional day for me. As my dad arrives tomorrow, I find myself packing clothes for my dad in order to dress him up for his "sending away".

My mom was literally in tears when she was packing his things.. She kept saying "ah, I want to give him some pants.. you see, this one is new, but this one is his favourite.. you see lah, his favourite one koyak koyak, the garter also loose oready still he wears"... and "I want to give your dad some nice shirts, this one is new, but you see lah, this one his favourite, from 1970s.. still he keeps wearing..."

My dad was a normal school teacher. His salary, at peak, probably never hit more than RM2,500 and yet miraculously he managed to send me and my brother over to Australia. Granted, we both had scholarships, but the fact is he managed to put us thru university with what was was scant salary.

My mom used to tell me about how my dad, after coming home from school, would rest for an hour before he took his trusty Honda C70 and road out and gave Accounting Tuition. It was that kind of dedication that put me and my brother thru university.

Dad, I want to say Thank You for all that you've done for me...

Parlour Address

For those of you interested, my father's wake will be at
46 Jalan Gajah Berang
75200 Melaka

Coming Home

My dad is finally coming home.

In a few hours, he will be on a plane to Amsterdam, then enroute to KL. He will arrive in KL in the afternoon of Wednesday June 6. We were originally thinking of rushing him home to Malacca but we were advised that because of the length of time spent on the plane, and because MAS CARGO did not have a place to "inspect the nature of the goods", the best is to move my dad to KL first, inspect him, touch up if necessary before returning to Malacca.

By the time my dad arrives in Malacca, we're probably shooting for 10-11pm on Wednesday. The wake will be opposite of the Seck Kia Eenh Buddhist temple, with this temple being very popular in Malacca located in the Gajah Berang area.

http://wikimapia.org/2006768/

Funeral will likely be on Friday June the 8th.

I guess after all this, the postings here will be less morbid...

CSI

The last few days have been tough on my brother and I. Both of us were busy rummaging thru all of my father's old materials, papers, slips of thingybobs just to try and reconstruct whatever bits and pieces of information regarding his financials.. like
- what credit cards does he have
- what savings does he havfe
- what stocks does he have
- what bills does he have

Then we had to trace and figure out whether he had any auto debits with any credit cards.. switch them over to me or my brother's cards..

Worst was my father's sole accounts.. my father passed without a will (or if he had one, I could not find it...) and therefore the law is that the government would freeze your accounts.. so we were scrambling to find where he stored his ATM cards..

We found a safe deposit key, then we had to figure out which bank he kept it at.. and when we finally traced the right bank, we found after we opened the safe deposit box.. there was another box with another key! Ayo... damn susah man...

Anyway, we managed to reconcile many things (this is where I am glad I am a master of reconciliation... you guys who have seen me in action during conversion will know..) but there were still a few ATM cards with no PIN numbers.. There was one card with a PIN, but the ATM immediately swallowed it.. so.. very tough...

Lesson learnt.. leave a will...

Discoveries

As I go thru my father's things.. i discover a few interesting things about my dad.

My brother bought my dad a Palm Zire 71 a few years ago because my dad was always the curious one who wanted to try things out. But when I accessed my dad's Zire, there was hardly any worthwile notes in there. Instead, I discover my dad had a passion of cutting up old envelops into small 2 inch by 2 inch squares which he brings around in his pouch and this is where he jots down things!

I saw an envelope full of those cuttings and that just moved me...

Then I also found out that my dad was also quite crafty. There was one of those envelopes where he wrote down a sequence of 5 songs. Knowing my dad, those were not his song choices. So I asked around and I found out that my dad recently won more than RM5K on Light and Easy's "Guess that sound"! Apparently my dad had a friend whose son worked in Astro and that boy would wait till the cash prize snowballed teruk teruk then the boy would leak the answer to his dad. So his dad would then pakat with my dad to call into the radio station!

Crafty!

I think that bit I inherited from my dad :)

Needle in a haystack

When my dad passed away, I now understand how important it is to have a very meticulous filing system. Yesterday, I spent a few hours pouring over his items trying to find traces of his ATM cards, his insurance, everything.. it was like looking for a needle in a haystack... sometimes it felt like an episode of CSI.. cause we find a piece of paper with a 6 digit number and immediately we think "could this be the PIN number to this ATM card?".... I'm still going thru..

Repatriation

I went thru a lot just to get my father's remains repatriated home. Yesterday, I spent almost the whole day at the bank trying to find better ways to remit funds over to the funeral house that held my dad's remains in Venice.

Being non Asian, they insisted that all payment be received before they repatriated the body. Then I find out that a Telegraph Transfer takes 2-3 days! SO I scrambled to see what other options there were.

I checked out Western Union. Wow.. this was some kinda chettiah like fund transfer. Maximum USD2,500. But you cannot transfer to a bank account. You transfer to a person. And in the form, you actually have to decribe the guy's physical appearance. Cheem!

I explored topping up my brother's credit card (he's there with my mom) and asking my bro to withdraw. But even tho I put in enuff funds, any withdrawal will incur cash advance charges..

So it was down to Telegraph Transfer, then I find out that the undertaker had not furnished certain details.. so again it was another scramble.

Thank god for technology, just before the bank closed at 4pm, Venice woke up, and the undertaker (not the WWF guy) found me online on google talk! Thank god for the blackberry too!

So in the end, online, with me using the blackberry (this is not an advertisement), the undertaker decided on good faith to repatriate my father's remains. He arrives on Wed next week and the wake will be in Malacca...

Complications

My father, whom I missed, passed away whilst on holiday. The complications are immense... I normally don't blog such morbid stuff but I cannot bring myself to blog about nice things and happy thoughts.

When a person passes away in a foreign land, one needs to make a decision whether to repatriate the body back, or to cremate and bring the ashes back. That was one decision point I had to go thru.

Repatriating the body back is also another headache. It is not cheap. For my dad, it will cost me close to 5K Euro. I need to start moonlighting at Jalan Chow Kit to make up for the expenditures.

And if you thought that having tons of cash expedited matters, you are wrong. You need all manners of certificates from the foreign land like death certificates, burial cert, enbalming cert, doctor reports, police reports etc etc.. all things that will drive you crazy.

Already I am multi tasking between work and planning for my father's "trip back home". Getting the approvals is another headache. My father passed away on Tuesday morning. It is now Thursday night. I don't know when my father will be sent back.

As I write this, I feel an immense heaviness in the heart, an immense heaviness in the eyes. Yes, I can simply blame work.. (which I still have to do, if not I cannot pay the bills.. for all of you who still think I am paid a lot, I keep telling you I am not. Please believe me). I owe it to my father, who has thought me the virtues of working hard.. I remember the times when I finished my SPM. Straight away he threw me this book and forced me to learn typing. That's why a lot of you wonder how come I can type so well. It is my father's guidance.

Yes, there are a lot of things attributed to my father. He had a bald patch.. my school friends used to say that Phil Collins was my dad. I am also balding.

My father has a very strong silent characteristic who will support his students during exams and during his teaching days. I guess some of that also rubbed off on me.

I pray that the red tape gets cleared soon so that my father will be back home soon.