#15 The Ink Was Still Wet: Remembering Tok Borhan

It was a Sunday in early October, two weeks after Tok Borhan and I signed the agreement. I learned from my family WhatsApp group about the death of Tok Borhan. The ink of the agreement is not dry yet, and he left us. I was shocked. I learned that he fell down in his own yard, most probably after a gardening activity and passed away. Most probably it is due to a heart attack. I felt the loss because we were starting to know each other and work together. I thought less about the farm but more about him as a person.

I was abroad and my parents couldn’t make it to his funeral. The next few days, my father and my mother went to Seremban to visit his wife and children, after his funeral.

Several weeks later when I was back to Malaysia, when I asked Grandmother about him, she said that he has just transferred an amount of money into her bank account as the lease of the farm several days before, and he has just informed her about it. And he died. She felt it deeply.

Tok Borhan might not be so punctual in paying the lease on time, but according to Grandmother, whenever the delay happened and he is reminded, he would immediately apologize and proceed to the payment accordingly, showing that he was a good man.

Sometimes, unexpected things happened in life. In Islam, we accept life as something written (qada’ and qadar). Our condolences to his family and good wishes to his soul.