Tahlil for Abah

On Sunday, I went back to Seremban to my mom’s house. We had a special prayer for my dad who died last December. Besides that, she also included the prayers for her three grandchildren, Syafiq, Yasmin and Syahmi who will be sitting for SPM end of this year. Hah! That’s a do or die exam for them.

The tahlil started at 11am and followed by lunch. My mom invited her Yaasin’s group to read the Yaasin. The members of the group are all females, and they are made of housewives and widows.

This group has been together for more than ten years. They would take turns to host the bacaan Yaasin. Actually, most of the time, their schedules were packed, especially during the weekend or Thursday afternoon.

Whenever they attended the prayer, they would always come in their colorful uniforms. Huh! Everybody would be wearing the same colors, same designed and same cutting. I have seen them with blue, pink, green and brown ‘baju kurung’, but on Sunday, it was the first time I saw them in black. I was curious how they decided which color to wear, so I asked my mom. Her respond was that the colors would take turn too. The next house would wear blue or whatever in their schedule.

The prayer didn’t really start at 11am as some of the members were late. They only started when three quarters of the members were presence. As per normal practice in Malay tradition, we will sit on the floor along the wall. The leader, Makcik Maznah, lead the prayer. The rest of the guest, which mainly made up of my big family members, joined the prayer too. The prayer lasted about an hour. Well, the ladies went slow and steady when they prayed.

After the prayer ends, there were ‘Salawat Nabi’ too, and this time, everybody stand up. My nieces then helped to distribute the Surah Yaasin and some cookies as a token of appreciation. The whole group than adjourned to the tent for lunch.
Did we cook the lunch? Nope. My mom ordered the lunch from the caterer nearby. It was a great lunch. The main dishes were ‘masak lemak daging salai’ and ‘sambal udang’. For the kids, there were fried chicken.


Since there was some leftovers, I took back some for dinner, but by 5pm, my kids said they were hungry, and they wanted the food that we brought home. “Okay, this will be your dinner kids,” I said. Unfortunately, they had a different idea. 


At 9.30pm, Zaki said, “Where’s dinner?” 
"Dinner?" I said. 
"Yes," said Zara, Zaki and Amir.

Ahhhh!!!! I was luckily husband was at the grocery stores; otherwise, I have to cook something simple for them. So I asked my hubby to get 2 fried Kuew Teow and one fried noodles for the kids. Selamat!!!!!