PERSONAL JUSTICE by Ramlee Awang Murshid

3

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK

9 OCTOBER 2000 - 3.00 a.m

MIA SARA returned to Tudor Hotel after visiting Hilman at New York Hospital. She has wanted to rest for a while. Now, as she looked out her window she could see the Queens District, its skyscrapers  so very obvious. She could make out Greenpoint and Long Island which seem to be the nearest from her sight.

New York! The city that never sleeps. A city packed with 18 million residents. The most well-known city in the United States comprising five districts that include Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Bronx. The hotel that Mia Sara was staying actually overlooked the United Nations headquarters and Queens-Midtown Tunnel.

After what seemed to be a long time, Mia Sara moved away from the window and plopped down on the bed. The soft mattress felt easy on her back. She let her mind wander off. Obviously, Hilman was foremost on her mind. Mia Sara had never spoken to the man. Nevertheless, he was very near to her heart. She actually loved the man named Hilman although they had never gone through a courtship. Strange! But that was what she felt going through her body and soul the first time she read about him in a newspaper eight years ago. She gathered back all the memories and replayed in her mind...

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TAMAN MULIA, BANDAR TUN RAZAK

July 1992 - 8.00 p.m.

 MIA SARA studied the yellow newspaper cuttings. Hilman, in his younger days, looked rather funny. Looking at those, Mia Sara giggled. Even his photo when he was a baby were also included.

Mia Sara concentrated on her readings. Starting from the news of the surgery, to the time when she had fully recovered.

Something stirred in her heart all of sudden. Tears from her eyes wetted her cheeks. Quickly, she wiped the tears away with her fingers. Dorothy was equally moved.

"Is this the person, mum?" Mia Sara asked.

"Yes, he's the one," replied Dorothy.

Mia Sara moved her forefinger over the photo in the newspaper. The photo was a bit faded. Dorothy had kept the newspaper cuttings for years, so that she could show them to Mia Sara. And today was the right day to reveal everything. 

Mia Sara stroke her below right chest. This was the man who had saved her live. The man who had willingly donated a part of his heart to me, she whispered. She was really impressed by the man's sacrifice. Now the heart given by the man to her had grown into her own.

"We were fortunate that there was this Malay man, Sara. He kept our hopes alive at the time when your father and I had almost given up," Dorothy watched her daughter who never looked up from the photos.

"You were already 14 months old when doctors found out that your heart was damaged after a prolonged fever. You were lucky there was a human being named Hilman who sympathized and was willing to donate a part of his heart without hoping for a reward," Mrs. Dorothy explained. 

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AT the time, Mia Sara was diagnosed to have suffered from a chronic heart disease. A group of specialist headed by Dr. Cheah Gek Ang had initiated a surgery to reattach an intestine to the heart after its esophageal varices suffered a hemorrhage, which in turn was complicated by an infection and heart failure. The surgery to transfer the heart took eight hours.

According to Dr. Cheah, heart was the most important organ in a human body. The pale red organ could be found at the left lower part of the chest and was the biggest organ in the body. It weighted between 1200 and 1600 gram. The heart releases the bile, controlled the sugar content in the blood to filter out the excessive amino acid, contained and processed the fats metabolism, neutralized the nitrogen toxic, produced urea and stored glycogen. Other than that, the heart was also the main blood filter from the intestines before it is channeled to other parts of the body.