By Ling Hui
BAU, July 30: ‘I used to be able to deliver fire awareness talks from one school to another, but now I can’t give a single talk without breaking down,’ says a firefighter dad who lost his only daughter to a fire on July 25, 2018.
The late Catherine Janet Tiwi’s father, Tiwi Nios, 57, said he would get low-spirited whenever he was about to give routine talks in schools or longhouses about fire awareness.
Following the tragedy of losing his 25-year-old daughter, he said he could not bring himself to publicly discuss fire awareness without being reminded of his own encounter.
“I often felt very down when I had to give these talks. This was not a feeling I had experienced before my daughter’s passing.
“Because it’s about fire awareness. We mostly talk about (fire) cases to create awareness. And that would remind me of things.
“There was one time I tried to toughen up for once. I talked about my own case and told my experience. They listened, and everyone was quiet,” Tiwi told DayakDaily at his house in Kampung Skio today.
After several tries to overcome his sorrow, he decided to request from his superior that he be opted out of giving fire awareness talks because the pain is too much to bear.
Nothing can ever fill the void of losing a child in a parent’s heart.
Until today, Tiwi and his wife, Wency Seimon, kept Catherine’s belongings untouched in the house. Her medals, books, clothes, and notebook remain where they were.
Tiwi said he still uses Catherine’s laptop, printer and other stationery. Her work desk is right in the living room next to a cabinet full of Catherine’s trophies and medals obtained during her school years.
Always proud of his late daughter, Tiwi reminisced fond memories of when little Catherine could recognise words from roadside advertisement banners, although she was only in kindergarten.
“She always received trophies in school too. I still remember I felt so shy for having to go up on stage so many times for almost every prize because my daughter won everything,” he said.
As a father, husband, man, and firefighter, Tiwi has to be tough. During the interview with DayakDaily, he repeated: “Yes, sometimes we still feel sad, but life must go on.”
He had said it four times during the entire session, as if it was meant for his own ears, to convince himself that life must indeed go on.
Today, a prayer meeting was held to commemorate Catherine’s fourth death anniversary. It was supposed to be held on July 25, but the family decided to reschedule it to today so that more relatives and friends could attend.
Catherine, a teacher by profession, died after rushing into a burning teachers’ quarters in SK Batu Bungan, Mulu National Park, reportedly trying to save two fellow teachers whom she thought were trapped in the fire.
The two teachers, however, managed to escape the fire alive while Catherine perished. Her selfless act had touched many, prompting an outpouring of sympathy and mourning across the whole of Sarawak at the time. — DayakDaily
