“I WAS not allowed to look at my father’s face until the day of his funeral,” recalled Mohd Tawfik Ismail, who only got to see his father for the last time three days after his death.

Tawfik was 21 and studying at the University of New England in Sydney, Australia, when his father died of a heart attack on Aug 2, 1973.

“I was informed of his passing by the security personnel who knocked on my door at 2am.

“I didn’t open the door at first, because I assumed it was other university students who were out celebrating our university’s rugby team getting into the finals. But when the knocking became persistent, I finally opened the door.”

Tawfik said he was in a state of total shock when the news was first broken to him.

The Australian government made arrangements for Tawfik to return home to attend his father’s funeral.

He was accompanied by his cousin, Mazwan Awang. He remembered the long journey home, as he had to fly out from the Armidale airport in New South Wales to Sydney and then to Singapore (via Singapore Airlines), before taking the connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur.

“The first thing I did on my return was to go straight home,” he said, adding that although the family was deeply saddened by the passing, his mother, the late Toh Puan Norashikin Mohd Seth, “was holding up quite well”.

“After that, I went to the National Mosque to see my father but I couldn’t see him because the coffin was closed and covered.”

Disappointed, distraught and “utterly exhausted”, he went back home to rest.

“We couldn’t do much in terms of planning the funeral because we had to wait for the then prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein to come back from Canada where he was attending the Commonwealth Summit.”

He said Ismail died on Thursday night but was only buried at the Heroes Mausoleum near the National Mosque on Sunday afternoon.

With Razak in Canada, Malaysia was momentarily leaderless upon the death of Ismail, who had served as acting prime minister.

Tawfik said things were “a little chaotic” in regards to the circumstances surrounding the events leading to Ismail’s funeral.

“Razak had wanted my father to lie in state at Parliament House because he felt non-Muslims would be uncomfortable paying their last respects at the National Mosque, as was proposed by the then works and communications minister, Tun Sardon Jubir.

“To make matters worse, the burial was delayed because the first grave site was marked outside the Heroes’ Mausoleum when it should have been inside.” On Razak’s instructions, a second grave was dug inside the mausoleum.

It took some time because the soldiers who were brought in for the task had to break through thick concrete floors.

Thousands attended the funeral at the National Mosque and later, the burial at the Heroes’ Mausoleum and offered their condolences to Ismail’s widow, Norashikin, and his six children. He said Norashikin was on painkillers during the funeral as she had undergone a tubectomy days earlier.

“My father had visited my mother in hospital before coming home on the night he died.

So, imagine my mother’s shock when she was informed of his death.” After the funeral, a 40-day tahlil prayer was performed for Ismail.

“The imam of the police mosque conducted the tahlil prayers for my father.” Tawfik said Razak would visit during the prayers to see how the family was doing, along with other dignitaries and family friends.

Raising six children on her own, with the youngest just 5 then, was not easy for his mother. But Norashikin, who was nicknamed Neno by her family, pulled through remarkably.

‘The last time I talked to my father was when he came to visit me in Australia in March, 1973.

“He had asked me to get my sister Zailah a place in the same university to pursue her tertiary education because he liked the campus and the atmosphere, there.”

After Ismail’s death, Zailah went on to pursue her studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang.

“I was closer to my father than my mother in his later days.

He would allow me to sit in during adult conversations with his friends.

“I learnt so much from him, including the importance of hard work and integrity and to always make good on your promise.

“He advised me to always be humble, apologise if you have made a mistake and not to depend on others, even for the simplest task,” said Tawfik, who was a one-term member of parliament for Benut.

Tawfik said Ismail never allowed him to ride in the official vehicle and he always had to travel in the backup vehicle.

“My father only allowed me to travel with him in his official car when there was something important to talk about.

“Otherwise, it was always the backup car.” He recalled the time when his father feched him at the airport in his official car, accompanied by police outriders.

“He was heading home after attending a function. That was exciting.” Tawfik said he was shocked to learn that Razak had leukaemia when he went through his father’s papers after his death.

Apparently only Ismail knew of Razak’s condition and had kept it a secret.

“From the notes, I gathered that my father thought Razak would die before him because of the leukaemia and that he would be followed by then finance minister, Tun Tan Siew Sin, who had a collapsed lung.

“Both men outlived my father.”-nst