AS the late afternoon sun bathes the patio, we dine leisurely at the Royal Lake Club Kuala Lumpur. 78-year-old Matthew Thomas gazes into the distance and sighs: "How I wish she were here today..."
He still feels the loss of his wife, Anne, who died from cancer five years ago. "Time doesn't make it go away," he says wistfully. "I still miss her every day."
I nod wordlessly. It's gut-wrenching to lose someone you love.
My father, much like Anne, departed in 2018. Each memory of him is still punctuated by tears to this day. Time certainly doesn't lessen the sorrow. Instead, we learn to shoulder the enduring ache of grief.
"My wife endured four difficult months in the hospital before succumbing to a brain tumour," he shares softly. "Even in her coma, I spoke to her, holding onto hope that she could hear me."
We hope that they'd hear us somehow, I reflect silently, remembering how I desperately had long one-sided conversations with my own dad, who had slipped into a coma, shortly before his death. I never told him enough that I loved him while he could hear me. I tried to make up for it as I sat by his hospital bed holding his hand.
"The death of a loved one never leaves you," he declares. "Every day I think of her. We were very close, you know!" He sighs again and grows quiet for a while.
I understand grief well. And so does this "uncle", as I call him. Even after five years, he struggles with her absence. It is hard, he confesses, dealing with the memories and the suffocating loneliness that floods in like an unwelcome visitor during the night.
Urged by his close friend, Mohamed Keshavjee, Thomas began documenting his feelings. Concerned about Thomas' grief, Keshavjee travelled from London to comfort him. "He saw my pain," Thomas remembers, "and suggested writing as a way to find clarity and peace".
Initially hesitant to write due to the pain of recalling their life together, he told his friend he'd written chapters just to satisfy him. But when his friend asked to read them, he felt cornered. With no way out, he finally took up his fountain pen and began documenting his memories of Anne. From those thick sheaves of handwritten papers, Ivy on Stone, Matthew's memoir, slowly took shape.
He pauses for a moment to carefully retrieve his wallet from his trouser pocket. Flipping it open, he presents a small photo, meticulously cut from an ID. "This is my wife when we got married," he shares, voice filled with pride.
"She's so pretty!" I respond, sincerely taken by the image. The photo of the young woman with short hair radiantly smiles back. "She's very pretty," he agrees, adding passionately: "She's even prettier than that. This photo is not doing justice. Her complexion was perfect!"
The love he has for Anne, or "Darley" or "D" as she's affectionately called, remains palpable. His eyes, beneath his spectacles, softens, and he looks at her picture silently, lost in his thoughts. Outside, where we sit, the sound of birdsong and whispering leaves of the trees can be heard.
I received Thomas' book just two days ago, and I'm already more than halfway through. Introduced to me by his publisher, the synopsis of Ivy on Stone had immediately piqued my interest. This memoir delves into Thomas' marriage and his journey to reconcile with her passing. More than just a chronicle of love and grief, it's a touching tribute that captures a profound faith beyond traditional beliefs, as he reflects on the life they shared.
LOVE AT FIRST INTRODUCTION
From the start of the book, Thomas' heartfelt observations tug at the heartstrings. "This is not a tale of woe," he writes. "It is a story of love."
He paints a portrait of a marriage steeped in love, anchored by unforgettable moments spent together. The book, Thomas emphasises, is a collection of those memories with a person whose gravestone is now marked mainly with two dates interspersed with a hyphen. "I hope to explain part of the hyphen, which in effect, was not a short interlude, though Anne could have lived longer," he writes. "But it is a life well lived and one filled with joy and laughter, among other things."
The depth and tenderness with which Thomas speaks of Anne shows their strong connection built from years of shared dreams and mutual understanding. It's a testament to the bond they nurtured, regardless of how their journey began. This profound connection piques my curiosity about the origins of their union.
So it's surprising to learn a little later in the book that Thomas' marriage was arranged. "How could you marry someone you didn't know?" I blurt out, unable to contain my curiosity. His sage response is accompanied by a broad grin: "The joy in an arranged marriage lies in the gradual discovery and unfolding mystery of the other person." He pauses, then adds with a twinkle in his eye: "To tell you the truth, I had no plans to marry back then. But after tolerating my numerous late nights out with friends, my mother decided it was time!"
She had insisted that the 29-year-old lawyer should settle down as soon as possible. "You find me a Malayalee Mar Thoma girl willing to marry me and I will marry her," he promised the elderly woman.
She smiled and asked: "Is that a promise?" He replied: "Yes, that's a promise."
A week later, she presented him with his flight ticket, saying: "This is for you to go to Johor Baru and meet the girl. If you both like each other, then arrangements can be made for you to get married."
Thomas was stunned.
"There was no escaping," he tells me, breaking into a chuckle. "I was literally escorted from the airport right up to Anne's house!"
Thomas fell in love with Anne at first sight. "She was pretty!" he repeats wistfully. "I was hoping that she'd like me in return and when I finally learnt that she did, it made me so happy."
They were married not long after.
INDELIBLE MEMORIES
Thomas' narrative often extends beyond his moments with Anne. It offers glimpses into his personal journey, his parents and the myriad individuals who touched their lives. Ivy on Stone weaves together a vibrant mosaic of tales, memories and reflections on life and its inevitable end.
While it showcases a traditional love story (and this might have many elderly Asian parents, including mine, nodding in gleeful approval of how arranged marriages can flourish — I can almost sense my mother revisiting her matchmaking list for me once more!), it's also a poignant tale of parents from a bygone era, giving everything for their children to achieve what they themselves couldn't.
Thomas father, an immigrant from Kerala, India, tirelessly worked without accumulating any savings to his name. "He was a modest man, devoid of materialistic ambitions," Thomas recalls. "Like many parents of his time, raising a large family on a modest income meant there was no room for anything beyond extreme frugality."
His uncle made him realise that his father left a different kind of legacy. "Your father, like most fathers of that era, had invested all he had in his children," his uncle told him. "They were his investment. Look at you and your siblings: all of you are either well-married or have received a proper education. His investment will never disappear because it is invested in each one of you for life."
"It was a big lesson for me," he shares honestly. "We have good things now because of what my dad's generation did for us. They faced tough times but did it with such courage and grace."
Next, there was Valliamah, the incorrigible domestic maid Thomas employed after his marriage. While she was diligent in her tasks, her nightly disappearances combined with the curious reduction in Thomas' liquor bottles aroused his suspicion. One evening, driven by curiosity, Thomas recounts stumbling upon Valliamah and her lover in a secluded shack. Amusingly, his now empty liquor bottles stood nearby, as if they were guards keeping watch over the sleeping couple!
Then there was a time where when he tried to save a young girl trapped in an outhouse from a raging bull. He shouted at the animal and threw stones at it before it turned its attention on the young boy. "I ran as fast as I could, shouting for help!" he recounts, chuckling. "After a while, the bull got bored and ambled away. But I did feel like Sir Lancelot rescuing a damsel in distress, albeit from an outhouse!"
Ivy on Stone reads like an intimate glimpse into Thomas' personal diary. Eschewing a traditional chronology, the narrative dances fluidly from memory to memory — of the places they've been, the lives they led — while always circling back to his present state of mind. Thomas grapples with ideas of mortality and faith, pondering the painful question of why Anne was taken so young. "Why Anne? Why not Anne?" His internal conflict resonates deeply, and I find myself sharing in his search for understanding.
PROFOUND LOSS
Often, our conversation would naturally fade into a comforting quiet. Gazing at the verdant trees near the patio, he remarks: "It's a beautiful place, isn't it?" Turning towards me, he continues softly: "I'm glad I took early retirement once our two boys completed their education. Anne and I then decided to travel the world together."
His eyes spark to life as he recounts their escapades in Africa — journeying across the Serengeti, exploring the Olduvai Gorge, often called the "cradle of humanity", and more. "Believe it or not, our passports and money were stolen in Nairobi!" he says, chuckling at the memory. "That mishap sparked one of our biggest disagreements, but we thankfully made up and carried on with our unforgettable African adventure!"
He cherishes the times he travelled the world with his wife. "I can't imagine not having those memories," he muses with a sigh. "We certainly lived life to the fullest, for which I'm forever grateful."
One day, however, Anne came home from the gym, complaining of double vision. Despite an MRI, doctors were initially baffled. "That marked the beginning of our toughest journey," he says, voice laden with emotion. Her health declined rapidly, and while first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the true culprit was later identified: cancerous myeloma tumours in her brain, and they were inoperable.
"I knew then that D (as he called her) had not long to go, but I kept that thought to myself," he writes poignantly. "I would be with her day and night, until her last breath. I would never let her go on this journey alone."
As she lay there in a coma, he whispered to his dying wife that he too will die one day as all living things has to come to an end. "When that day comes," he whispered. "I will travel to the far reaches of the heavens in search of you and find you and dwell with you forever. For as Dickens wrote: 'You are the last dream of my soul.'"
His eyes glisten as he tells me: "She was my best friend, my companion who stood by me through every season in life." He picks up his book and looks at it wordlessly. "When I miss her now, I open up this book and read of our times together," he says quietly.
As I leaf through the pages of his book, I tearfully recall my own memories of loss. But within that grief lies a poignant truth: it's the depth of our love that gives rise to such profound sorrow. Love, he tells me, is the beacon that guides him forward. "She was the joy of my life," he reflects, tenderly cradling the book in his hands.
In the gentle dance of shadows as the afternoon sun sets, one thing remains clear: love, in all its forms, transcends the confines of time, leaving behind indelible imprints that we carry with us, long after the final page is turned.
IVY ON STONE
Author: Matthew Thomas
Publisher: Matahari Books
238 pages
Available at all major bookstores.