Singapore's newly minted President was coming for an eye operation and Dr Vivian Balakrishnan was feeling the stress.
But Mr S R Nathan's unassuming manner was disarming.
He did not ask for special treatment, recalled Dr Balakrishnan, an ophthalmologist who is now the Foreign Minister.
"I told him I wished he had come to me a few months before he had become president," he added of his most memorable meeting with Mr Nathan, who became President in September 1999.
Dr Balakrishnan's father and uncle were childhood friends with Mr Nathan.
"They always spoke about him in admiring tones, describing him as a very loyal and devoted friend.
"No matter how high he rose - and he rose to the highest office in the land - he never forgot his friends," he said.
Dr Balakrishnan was among several politicians who paid their respects yesterday to Singapore's sixth and longest-serving president, who died on Monday at age 92.
It was the second day of the private wake held at Mr Nathan's Ceylon Road home, and they spoke of the qualities they admired most in him, and swopped stories of their personal encounters and relationships with him.
Long-time friend S. Chandra Das, a former MP and Singapore's non-resident High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, helped to organise Mr Nathan's 80th, 85th and 90th birthday celebrations.
"There was no protocol, although people such as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, as well as former prime ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, were at the celebrations," Mr Chandra Das recalled.
"To him, it was an opportunity to meet up with old friends."
He added: "I promised him I would organise a party for his 95th. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen." He also said Mr Nathan's wife Urmila was doing better yesterday and was holding up well.
President Tony Tan Keng Yam and his wife, Mrs Mary Tan, as well as Old Guard minister Othman Wok, 91, visited the home to pay their respects too.
Other ministers included Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, Social and Family Development Minister Tan Chuan-Jin, Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli, and Acting Minister for Education (Schools) Ng Chee Meng.
Mr Nathan's contributions in various fields, from strengthening the labour movement to helping the community, were lauded by many.
When employers and unions were clashing in the 1960s, Mr Nathan, seconded from the civil service to the labour movement, helped develop a labour research unit that made a strong case for protecting workers' rights through tripartism, said Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say.
The way Mr Nathan "always put workers' interests upfront, as the top priority, is something we as a labour movement should never forget", he added.
Representatives of organisations that Mr Nathan worked in or was the patron of, including self-help group Sinda and the Inter-Religious Organisation, turned up in force.
Sinda chief executive K. Barathan remembered Mr Nathan as a man who cared deeply about the underprivileged in all communities.
Mr Nathan wanted to ensure equal opportunity for all, especially in education for the common people, said Mr Barathan.
Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) chief executive Alan Chan said that when Mr Nathan was appointed executive chairman of The Straits Times Press - the predecessor of SPH - he was met with suspicion from many journalists.
He was given a corner office on a floor away from The Straits Times newsroom, Mr Chan recalled some older journalists telling him.
Instead of taking offence, Mr Nathan instituted "coffee breaks".
"He would come down three times a week and sit with the editors... and they would go through issues of the day, and that alleviated a lot of suspicion," he added.
Mr Nathan was executive chairman from 1982 to 1988.
Former MP Wan Hussin Zoohri recalled Mr Nathan's concern for greater documentation of the Malay community's heritage.
"He wanted to document the Malay pioneers' contributions before independence and before the war," he told reporters at the wake.
