2 MARCH 1965

44 years ago, I was born to this world, today. According to my mum it was a Tuesday afternoon and it was an easy delivery as I was a healthy baby boy. Off course I don't know. You have to ask her on that. Being the last in the family and after I knew a certain thing or two, I had once asked my mother and father why my name was different from my other siblings, i.e. they all started with the initial "F" whereas I am the only one with the initial "H". My late father answered with a jest..I was a chinese boy he found in the bushes near our house. I was shocked. Looking at my appearance I did look a bit different from the others i.e. I am fairer than my eldest brother. I was devastated. You wouldn't have known how I felt at that time. My savior was none other then my mother off course....she showed me my birth certificate. Her name was written there as the one who gave birth to me. Sitting at her lap, she then told me all kind of stories during her pregnancy and I listened fondly...yes I am my father's and mother's son after all...Later that night, my father brought us all to eat 'satay' near the Muar river, his way of saying sorry...understandably how a parent react in those olden days...

How is life at 44? ermm sooner or later, God willing, you will be there too...and I can't wait to be in the next big Five "O", six years from now. Somewhat an anticipation huh? Try listen to what Agatha Christine has to say about reaching the age of 50, "I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find - at the age of fifty, say - that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about...It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you".

For me, age is just a number as what was rightly said by William Wordworth, "The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind." What do you achieved in that year is the most important...The most remembered woman, the late Lady Diana Cooper had this to say.."First you are young; then you are middle-aged; then you are old; then you are wonderful."... how extraordinary her words had been, even so coming from someone who did not even experience old age. Hemmm...

At this age, I must confess I begin to take my love life a little step further, as broad as it may sound but it has become as deep as it can be. I honestly believe in what Jeanne Moreou words on this subject. "Age does not protect you from love, but love to some extent protects you from age". True to the words, love does not understand the meaning of age...

To fully stress my point on what life must be in relation to age, derived from the words of this one great man. "And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."- Abraham Lincoln

I want to die young at a ripe old age.
(Ashley Montagu)