|
After every function, she would enthusiastically relate to us how much she enjoyed herself and how much she looked forward to the next day's programme. By Rodziah Morshidi, Bernama
Jeanne Abdullah was the name on most of our minds when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi married her on June 9 last year, about two years after he lost his wife, Datin Seri Endon Mahmood, to breast cancer.
I was in Manchester, visiting a friend, when the news about Pak Lah (Abdullah) remarrying first hit the headlines. Though we were thousands of miles away from home, that became the topic of our conversation with fellow Malaysian students at Manchester's Salford University.
We were frequently asking ourselves, why Jeanne, who is Jeanne and what is so special about Jeanne? Some among us thought anyone or other eligible and more glamorous women would be willing to marry the prime minister of Malaysia. Those were the thoughts that occupied my mind at that point in time.
Seeing her on television and newspapers, she did not strike me as that special woman. I guess after a while I sort of got used to her being Pak Lah's wife and I just stopped thinking about it.
But at the back of my mind I still believe that there is something special about her that had made Pak Lah choose her.
When I was assigned to be the liaison officer to Jeanne during her visit to Kuching in August to attend functions hosted by Sabati, the Sarawak Association of Wives of Elected Representatives, I accepted it with mixed feelings.
On one hand, at 50, I thought I was sort of over-aged for the job. But on the other, I was always curious about Jeanne and now would be a good chance for me to have a first-hand encounter with her and to know her better.
When I first started a coversation with her after introducing myself as her liaison officer during her stay here, she gave a sweet smile and made me feel at ease with her politeness.
We shook hands, and as I looked down, I noticed she had a pair of dainty feet, and without reservation, I told her so.
"It was nice of you to also sometime look down," she responded in what to me were carefully chosen words.
Jeanne looked to me like someone genuinely sweet, pleasant, friendly and polite and I liked her instantly.
She looked simple, yet demure, sophisticated, yet down to earth. She was a VIP who could relate to anybody she meets, and could warm anyone who comes to her for words of comfort.
What struck me most was the appreciation and enthusiasm she showed towards all the activities in the programme for her four-day visit. After every function, she would enthusiastically relate to us how much she enjoyed herself and how much she looked forward to the next day's programme.
No matter how late the function ended, she would always have time to chat with us, sharing her thoughts on how she would want her next speech to be done, and never too tired to go through her speech with me and Normah Mohd Zain, her private secretary.
And she even read out her text to Pak Lah on the phone to get the nod from him.
I noticed that Jeanne is someone so trusting and has no reservation in expressing herself freely on certain issues.
She takes her duties seriously, wants to deliver her best and is always concerned about whether she has correctly sent her message across after every speech she had just delivered, and how it could be improved in her upcoming speech.
In nearly all the speeches she delivered during her stay here, she always made it a point to stress the effective complementary roles that wives of elected representatives could play in society.
She reminded them over and again on how important and meaningful this gesture would be for the simple kampung folk in their respective constituencies.
Jeanne, though looking soft and gentle, is actually strong at heart, judging from the way she wanted to try her hand on anything new to her.
This was what happened when she so readily tried to eat the Ulat Mulong, the sago tree worm indigenous to Sarawak's Melanau community.
She took it not only cooked but raw as well. Being a Sarawakian myself, I have never tried to eat the "delicacy", and I know of so many friends who dared not do so, too.
Jeanne also loves to be in the company of friends. She was always so obliging to pose for pictures when requested by those women who wanted their pictures taken with her.
On a trip to Kampung Budaya (Cultural Village), she requested to be on the same bus with the other ladies, looking forward to the singing and chatting she would share with them in the bus.
She was always so eager to be part of the group and to toe the line and follow the rules laid out before the group.
She walked through all the stalls set up to sell various products during a seminar, and spent a fair bit of time chatting and posing for pictures with all the stall owners and workers. This really touched everyone's heart.
Jeanne also mingled freely with a group of physically handicapped or special children and, showing genuine concern, she enquired into their welfare and financial standing.
Throughout the function, she never stopped holding the hands of these children, and enjoyed enormously rendering the songs, "We are the World" and "The Greatest Love Of All" to the very end.
Datin Seri, being a simple you, yet sensitive, strong and loving, I am sure you will do wonders to Malaysians who need love and care.
(The author is the Resident of Kuching Division).
 |
