The suddenness, the jolt and the thunderbolt that struck friends and fellow beings around us of late, must have been a stark and cold reminder from the Almighty about how weak and vulnerable we mere mortals are.
We have just been taken aback by news about Jelebu member of parliament (MP) Datuk Zainudin Ismail, who collapsed at his house in Kuala Klawang on Friday.
The 57-year-old first- term Barisan Nasional parliamentarian was taken to Jelebu Hospital at noon but moved to Kuala Lumpur Hospital, where he underwent brain surgery later in the night to remove a tumour.
Zainudin’s abrupt dysfunction could be the result of the stress in performing his role and duties as an elected representative, the people’s delegate in Parliament. We have seen quite a few of such breakdowns already.
On April 4, Sepang MP Mohamed Hanipa Maidin was rushed to hospital after he was found unconscious in his seat in the Dewan Rakyat.
According to news reports, fellow MPs M. Kulasegaran of Ipoh Barat and Charles Santiago of Klang found him slumped in his chair when they went to investigate why he did not come out of the house during recess.
Parti Amanah Negara’s Hanipa, 48, later underwent a two-hour surgery at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital for brain haemorrhage.
At the time of writing, both Zainudin and Hanipa were recovering.
Journalists, who also go through immense pressure on the job, are not spared such agony as seen in the most recent case of New Straits Times sub-editor Yusri Azmin, 57, who collapsed at home because of stroke.
Most probably it is the hazard and dangers of the job that politicians and journalists carry and such cases are certainly not confined to Malaysia.
In Singapore, it was also stroke that brought down the republic’s finance minister, Heng Swee Keat, who collapsed during a cabinet meeting last Thursday.
Widely regarded as a potential future premier, Heng, 54, was rushed to hospital where a CT scan was carried out and showed that he had suffered a stroke. Analysts described him as a valuable member of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s team.
Sadly, the shockers have extended beyond boardrooms, newsrooms and parliamentary sittings to football fields.
Cameroon international Patrick Ekeng collapsed during a match for his club, Dinamo Bucharest, in Romania on May 6.
The 26-year-old came on as a 63rd minute substitute in the match against FC Viitorul Constanta, but collapsed just seven minutes later due to a heart attack.
Paramedics attempted to resuscitate him but he was pronounced dead at Floreasca Emergency Hospital less than two hours later.
We may recall a similar incident nearer home as it happened in Terengganu two years ago, when David Oniya, 30, a Nigerian footballer playing for the T-Team, collapsed three minutes after kick-off in a friendly match against Kelantan. He died less than an hour later in hospital. It was also due to a heart attack.
And on May 1, 18-year-old goalkeeper Stefan Petrovski, an Australian playing for Malacca United, died. The reason was different this time: he was struck by lightning while training two weeks earlier and never regained consciousness.
Pardon the grim and depressing tone of this article through instances reproduced above. All of them, it must be noted, took place only recently with most within the past few days.
They are meant to show that sickness and calamities could befall anyone of us anywhere and at any time. They also remind us that no matter our state, there is a far superior being determining our fate.
They immediately bring to my mind the preaching uttered during a Friday sermon at a Subang Jaya mosque recently.
Titled “Remembrance of death purifies the soul”, the sermon, among other things, called out: “Look and ponder upon the pangs of death and the agony at the moment of death. Let us realise that death will surely come upon us whether we are leaders or normal citizens, rich or poor, young or old, healthy or not. Hence, let us hasten to make tawbah (repentance).”
Grim, surely, but wholly irrefutable.
Syed Nadzri is former NST group editor