In Memory: Mohd Shukor Md. Tahir a.k.a Koi ( November 23rd, 1981 - February 25th, 2010)

 

A dear friend of mine just passed away on Wednesday night at 28 years old due to heart attack. An honest, kindhearted, humble, and happy-go-lucky person, one who never wants to share his personal problems with others as he doesn't want to burden others that we had to force it out from him. He was my best friend since our high school years, and we went through thick and thin together.

His sudden death was definitely a huge shock, it was like a massive tidal wave smashed against my chest squeezing the life out of me. It was on Thursday morning; I was in middle of texting a message to him, wanted to go hangout with him this weekend as I got a long weekend break off work, when the bad news arrived. Shocked and stunned, I actually froze in my seat for a few minutes with tears dribbling down from my eyes.  Heart attack...he was a smoker and asthmatic, but it never crossed my mind that he actually had any heart problems. Up until now, I still couldn't recover well.

I met Koi during my first year in high school, was actually introduced to him by Shahril. The three of us practically had the same hobbies, and ran into one another quite frequent, largely due to our enthusiastment to one of our hobbies (Magic: the Gathering TCG to be exact). This game also introduced me to current fellow tabletop gamers; Faizal Sani, Arzmi, Rizal a.k.a Jit, and Alvin Forsberg among others, as we too were hooked up with this game. Since then we became very good friends, we even worked together as staff for Comics Corner Subang Jaya and columnist for the Gamer's Sideboard magazine for several years. I still remembered the days during my semester breaks that we just drive aimlessly through Subang-PJ-KL throughout the day watching the things people do, and have a laugh at it. Also the days that we went through various FNMs, and tournaments, even multiple Grand Prix; oh boy, did we take our hobby too seriously. And the moment we decide to call M:tG quits as our work/studies and economical condition was not conducive, plus the metagame scene was evolving too fast. We still however continue to read/collect comic books, and did I mentioned that he had a huge collection of Transformers action figures. I still remembered at one time, we even planned to open a comic/hobby shop together in the future.

Koi was also one of the people that pushed me to go on and never give up with my studies, even when I was in the verge of quitting it. He was also the one who taught me on multi-tasking and how to make time despite our own  hectic daily life. He went on with his path in the entertainment business, while I continued at the health care field. However since the age of Friendster/Facebook, I have to admit that I took things for granted. Regularly checked his page for updates, but didn't actually make an effort to contact or message him in person.  He was a  very good friend, but I don't think I was one to him. Regrets filled my mind and soul, but what's done is done. We can never change the past, we can only make an effort for a better future.

Innalillahi Wainnalillahi Raji'un.
Rest In Peace, my brother. I'll never ever forget you.