Today, Dad is undergoing another surgery on his injured leg. A small one. Still, I worry. The wound from his previous surgery should have closed and been healed by now, but it didn't. He'd been doing okay actually, walking about vigorously almost without cane or crutch, yet these past two days he resorted back to wheelchair. He refused to make a fuss on it just as he had done when he'd gotten into the accident last October.

Okay... that's a wrong term. "'Collision,'" said Sergeant Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz. "For 'accident' implies there is nobody to blame."

It had been unusual of him to take that course that day, walking to the post office to pay electricity bill. Dad had said it would be good for health. He had been minding his way, walking on the right side of the road and all. Yet, "bad things happen," he said. An underaged biker had run into him from behind. Dad's right leg had been broken.

The kid biker, though, had had it worse. He'd got concussion and been unconscious for days. His parent had come and apologized. Police too had come and asked if we would press charges. But Dad had dismissed it, saying that the guilt the kid would bear for the rest of his life was more than enough.

To this day, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I was angry... and I think I still am. Watching Dad struggling with his new-found "physical challenge" had been painful to me. Only last ramadhan, I began to truly appreciate his persistence on going to mosque every dawn for shubuh and comprehend his need to do so. Now he can't do it anymore. He and Fahmi had shared routines of walking around the block every morning, browsing the sunday market at Gasibu and playing at Pusdai. Now they can't do it anymore.

The doctors have given hope that Dad would recover and be able to walk again. But Dad being almost a septuagenarian raises questions of the feasibility of growing bones at his age. Dad, being the realist and optimist as he has alway been, still joked, though. "So what?! That's life! I am old. It's a blessing."

Dad... you are amazing.