HellBoy Part III

Saturday 26 July 2008 was a blackday for my mother in law (MIL) as she got robbed and injured in her own house.

It was a bright 6.45am morning when her daughter left for work and leaving her alone, a usual routine for umpteen years. Never before my MIL felt her safety is compromised as the village is rather peaceful (aptly named, Kampong Selamat) and no such mishap ever happened to the place she called home for the past 70 odd years. She is 84yrs old and ailing due to the old age osteoprosis and on that very morning was crouching and inching her way for breakfast in the kitchen. She was initially not surprised as she thought 2 figures in front of her were to be two of her many grandsons probably popping up early morning. But suddenly the 'grandson' got hold her right arm and warned her not to shout.

She immediately realised that the person is a 'bad' guy and in the scuffle, broke her arm. The intruders shoved her to the floor and began emptying cupboards and cabinets finding anything valuable they can retrieve. During that 10minutes of frantic activity, my MIL who is laying scared-still on the floor witnessed all the ransacking and too hapless to crawl for safety fearing that the robbers can easily caught her. The intruders hastily ran out after getting their loot but my MIL had trouble to call for help as she has no vocal strength, the phone was out and herself, very limited in mobility. With a broken arm she crawled out of the house, inched her way through shrubs 80 meters away to her nearest neighbour. We just cannot imagine how long it took her crawling and the agony she carried with her.

Help came immediately after, but then it is all too late for the memory of the tragedy has already been etched into her and we wonder if she would ever say her village "Kampong Selamat" again.