Pakcik Remimisces (Pt 36) – The three we have

Over thirty years ago we were blessed with three children That, apart from the very life that we are still breathing today, is His most meaningful and invaluable gift to us.

Mother & her 3 children with father's favourite Pallas  

It was a real test of courage for the mother when those three babies were destined to come into this world through caesarian operations, which by today’s standard was primitive in those days. To put it crudely, a doctor would cut up enough opening in the mother’s abdomen for the baby to be taken out and the gap stitched close with whatever thread used at that time. That harrowing and traumatic part was replayed a week later when the thread that bound the wound had to be removed; what fear and pain accompanying it. To go through that traumatic experience once was enough but having to go through that same process the second and third time was psychologically a torture. Nevertheless, this mother surrendered herself to Him simply for the strong desire to have more children. The prominent gynaecologist of that era, Dr McCoy recommended a permanent stop against any fancy idea of going beyond three, let alone to go for ‘cheaper 
by the dozen’ !
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Note on Dr Mc Coy

Dato’ Dr. Ronald Stephen McCoy was born on May 5, 1930

A past president of MMA (Malaysian Medical Association)

He was among the first group of students to be admitted to the University of Malaya in Singapore when it was founded in 1949.Dato' McCoy is currently a member of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, a group of seventeen distinguished and eminent persons from 12 countries appointed by former Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating to propose practical measures for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
From Straits Times on the occasion of 'Victorian of the Year 2004' - Victorian Indtituition, KL
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Today with improved technique, a mother can go through such operation practically unlimited. Our own daughter braved through four operations with a smile. The dreaded and painful experience of unstitching the wound was no longer necessary with self-dissolving thread. Some mothers, we are given to understand, opt for operations for personal reasons; such as a desired birthday for a baby and in some cases, I am given to understand, to avoid any body damage to the mother.

n/b: We have our way of marking birth dates for the three children, encoded in the car number plates - the inseparable three.

7917 ?

 

The encoded birthday dates and mother's old favourite

Today, as an expecting father, I recall those harrowing moments when I sat saying my prayers for the safety of my beloved life partner.

  

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Some years later when the three children reached their schooling age I was determined to start them learn the meaning of humility through the process of growing up. We had a comfortable life but the children had to learn that ours was not the norm. For that reason we decided on two schools in Brickfields, thirty years ago, a semi slum area where one would find homes of poor families and accommodations for general labourers of Malayan Railway and squatters as well.

One would not see a child being scheuffer-driven to those two schools. Makcik used to volunteer to prepare milk ( from milk powder donated by a company) and dispense it to poor children at the school. It was also not unusual for one of our children to tell us on his return from school that a friend borrowed five or ten cents to make up enough to buy something. Our advice was never to accept the money back, whatever was given was to be treated as a gift. In those days it was not uncommon for children to go to schools with 20 or 30 cents each. We wanted our children to realise how lucky they were in life. No one talked in those schools about having enjoyed holidays abroad.

Indeed, our three children survived well at those lowly-rated schools. But their father was a ‘tyrant’ at home making them work extra lessons. And today, that ‘tyrant’ has spent the last twenty years ‘terrorising’ the poor children at Almanar. And, hopefully, our children and grandchildren, continue to live with full realisation that there are others whose life is not as fortunate as theirs.

Berkhidmat kerana Tuhan untuk kemanusiaan.