On Monday, I kissed Tun Dr Hasmah Mohamed Ali goodbye and stayed through her final rites.
Beside me, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the man who had shared 70 years of his life with her. To see him grieving the loss of his beloved wife was heartbreaking.
Malaysia has lost a remarkable lady. Tun Dr Hasmah was exemplary in her devotion to her family, her service to the country and the grace with which she carried both. She leaves an example for us to emulate. I have also lost someone who treated me like a daughter.
I called her Mummy. She called me sayang.
There is one thing I will always remember about her: a watch.
When my father was the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, from 1984 to 1989, he gave Tun Dr Hasmah a Bvlgari watch. Decades later, when I became Queen, I noticed that she wore it whenever we met at an Istana or government function. Her eyesight was poor by then, but there was my father’s watch on her wrist.
I would whisper, “My father’s present.”
She would smile.
She wore it again and again in my presence. Perhaps she knew how much it meant to me. She was honouring my father and she was letting his daughter know that she remembered him. That quiet gesture touched my soul.
Tun Dr Mahathir had served as Prime Minister during my father’s reign. He became Prime Minister again when my husband, Al-Sultan Abdullah, was the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. I had married while my father was King and my husband and I had once been a young couple watching that older generation carry their responsibilities. Then the years passed and we found ourselves in their places. How beautifully and sometimes unexpectedly, Allah arranges our lives.
I had known Tun Dr Hasmah since I was a young princess following my mother to her functions as Queen. At one Girl Guides event, we shared a cake: Aug 5 was my birthday and also her wedding anniversary.
After my wedding in Johor, when Indonesian President Suharto came for a visit, Tun Dr Hasmah asked me to show her my wedding dress. It was made of Brunei songket and heavily beaded by the Queen Sirikit Support Foundation, at Chitralada Palace in Thailand, under Queen Sirikit’s supervision. I remember how interested Tun Dr Hasmah was in every detail.
Just recently, on Malaysia Day, I saw a photograph of two children dressed as Tun Dr Hasmah and me, each holding a portrait of the woman they represented.
I felt deeply honoured to see myself portrayed beside her. She had given so much of herself to this country and I had known her kindness since I was young. To be placed alongside Mummy moved me more than I can say.
Another photograph takes me to Masjid Negara. We were seated close together among the women, reading Yasin. I look at it now and remember how it felt to be beside her, sharing a prayer.
One photograph shows how others saw us. The other reminds me of the woman I knew and loved. I will always be grateful that our lives were brought so close.
Through the years, I came to know the gracious, impeccably dressed woman everyone recognised and the warm, funny woman who spoke to me about golf balls landing on her balcony and monkeys stealing her food.
She loved music. She played the violin and sent me recordings. She sang “Happy Birthday” to me in a voice message. When she joined us for lunch after we received our doctorates from Multimedia University, she wanted to sing and dance with me. She told me not to play “My Way” for Tun Dr Mahathir because he did not like the song.
Because her eyesight was poor, she often sent voice messages rather than typing. I saved her contact as “Mum HP,” because she had become a mother to me. She called me sayang, held my hand and gave me advice in the gentlest way.
During our years as King and Queen, we grew especially close. She understood more than I ever needed to explain. At one of the darkest moments of my life, she sent me a voice message. Her words were subtle, but I knew she was speaking to what I was going through. She was there for me.
We showed our affection in ordinary ways too. I sent her and Tun Dr Mahathir durian ice cream, durian puffs and dadar daging, which they both loved. I gave her Tenun Pahang Diraja. Just before the pandemic, she planned a tea with the ministers’ wives to welcome me as Queen. I had to cancel when I became ill after umrah and was admitted to hospital. Tun Dr Hasmah came to see me there.
Many Malaysians remember her as the wife of our longest-serving Prime Minister. I remember her as a woman who served the country in her own right. She set an example for the wives of ministers, encouraging them to work alongside their husbands in service to others.
I remember the badminton matches organised by BAKTI and the energy and companionship she brought to such occasions. She carried public life with dignity, yet she never lost her personal warmth. To me, she was the finest example of a leader’s wife: regal, gracious and deeply attentive to people.
Once, she told me that a book had referred to her as the First Lady. She came to apologise. “I’m not the First Lady. The Queen is. Please forgive me, Tuanku,” she said. She had no need to apologise for another person’s words. That she did so tells you something about her consideration for others.
When my husband and I held our farewell tea at the end of his reign, we invited the prime ministers and ministers who had served during his time as King. It was a wonderful, nostalgic afternoon. Three former prime ministers sat together over tea with a departing King. And there was Tun Dr Hasmah, chatting graciously with the other former prime ministers’ wives. I can still see her among them.
The last voice message I received from her came in November 2023. I was in Istanbul with Türkiye’s First Lady, Emine Erdoğan, and together we recorded a message for her. Tun Dr Hasmah replied that she missed me so much and wanted to hug me.
I listened to her voice again after her passing and I cried.
I wish I had saved all her messages. When I changed phones, I lost her birthday songs, her violin playing and so many little conversations. I hope I may yet find them. But I have that last reply. I can still hear her saying she missed me.
As I said goodbye, I thought of all the years she had been part of my life: the cake we shared when I was a girl, her visit to me in hospital, her hand holding mine, her calling me sayang. And I thought of Tun Dr Mahathir, sitting beside me without the wife who had been at his side for seventy years.
Then I thought of the watch.
My father gave it to her long ago. She kept it, and when his daughter became Queen, she wore it whenever she saw me. She never made a speech about loyalty or remembrance. She simply put on the watch.
That was Mummy. There will be no one quite like her again.
Al-Fatihah. May Allah forgive Tun Dr Hasmah, have mercy upon her, and grant her the highest place in Jannah.
