Reaching the peak?

Ohh!!! My blog has been sleeping. Time to wake up, ya! Wakey, wakey, wakey wake up! That was how my late father used to wake us up in the morning. Oh how I miss my abah. It has been 2 years plus since he left us to meet his maker. Al fatihah untuk abah dan semoga rohnya berada bersama orang-orang yang beriman.

Well, my blog has been silent for few weeks. Not dead, but just gathering dust. The owner has been missing. Not lack of an idea, but too lazy to think what to write. What an excuse!

Well, actually I was quite tied up, not with work but reading. I spent most of my time lately reading and watching those dramas and listening to music. It helps to keep me calm and takes me away from the reality. Escapism!

Well, I’m going through the phase in my life where my priority is no more on work. I guess, I have reached my peak in my career eight years ago where any challenges thrown to me, I would take it and deliver it. But now, I only look forward to the day where I can retire, and be a full time housewife. Hmmm…will I? Only time will tell!

Of late, I feel like a robot. Do thing automatically, step by step. It is as if I have been programmed like a robot, without much thinking needed. I feel like there is not many challenges. Heh…maybe the only challenge is handling my kids who at times can be very demanding.

When I looked back, it is kind of frustrating. The desires are there, but there is no more energy left. What can I say, except the body has been abused for years, and now it screaming for help?

Yeah… maybe it is crying for help. It screams, “ Rest and recharge me, mentally and spiritually.” Well, I did hear the scream, and as before, I turned myself to the Almighty HIM. HE will not abandon me. Pray read Quran and rest. That’s what I do. It is the best way for me to recharge spiritually and mentally, and hope I can bring the shine in me… InsyaAllah.

When I was young....

Lailatul Qadar will be coming soon. It will  happen in the last ten nights of Ramadhan. I would blog about the Lailatul Qadar later, but today I would like to share with you about my life in kampong in the early 70’s.

There was no electricity in my kampong, and by 7pm, the whole place would be dark and quiet. The only noises would be coming from crickets. We used oil lamp to lighten up the house. So at night, there were not many activities for us, kids. 

Most of the time we spend our nighttime studying or we went for Quran reading class. Walking in the dark to the Ustaz could be very challenging and scary. I was lucky that the Ustaz house was just across the main road.

Every evening, before it gets dark we were already at the Ustaz’s house. Well, there were more than ten of us, and we had to take turns to read in front of the Ustaz. While waiting for our turn, we would recite it first over and over.

The Ustaz was a fierce man. He didn’t like us to talk or play. If anybody caught playing, he would smack you with his cane. Hahaha…. Everybody would sit as far away as possible from him. Those who came in last would be the unfortunate one to sit near him.

We would not leave until he gave us permission to leave. In other words, we can only leave once everybody has finished his or her session with him, and normally, it will be after eight. By then, it would be very dark.

Since our house was only about 500 meter, we just ran across the road without any lights to assists us, but there were two sisters and a brother who lived quite a distance from the Ustaz’s house.

Since there was no road lights to lit the way, they used the dried coconut leaves to help them see their way home. The coconut leaves would be tied together, and they would light it. It’s their torchlight.  They would bring three of it and would light it one after another.

They didn’t mix much with the rest of us, and because of that we liked to tease them.  When we were half way to our house, we would shout at them, “Hantu……” or “Ghosts…” and ran as fast as possible.

The three of them would be running and screaming down the road with the burning coconut leaves. Every time they screamed and ran down the road, we would be laughing, until one day, their grandfather came to the Ustaz’s house and warned us.

From that day onwards, we didn’t tease them anymore. Furthermore, not long after that, they lost their mom. I didn't see them much after that. I wonder what happened to them now. I have not heard about them for so long. Maybe I would take the opportunity this Raya to ask my aunty or cousins about them.

I don't want to go through it again

Brickfield 

Eighteen years ago, I used to live in Brickfields. My parents-in-laws had an apartment there. The building was a five storey high. There are 32 units of apartment with office shop lot at the ground floor.

On the left side to the building, there are an old Malay cemetery. It was not used anymore, and on the right was a single storey bungalow house. In front of the apartment, there are two storey terrace house.

The place is very convenient because it was in the middle of the city. If I still lived there, I can just walk to my office at KL Sentral. But now the building didn’t look nice anymore. In fact, it looks so old and neglected if compared to other apartments or condominium that surrounded it.

When I was staying there, there was something weird happened that I don’t think I wanted to experience it again. At that time, Syafiq (my oldest son) was about one year old.

It happened in a middle of the night. Everything was very quiet. Suddenly, one of his toys, the fire truck siren went off. Normally, we need to press the button on the truck before the siren went off.

At first I thought, maybe something fell on the truck, but when the second time it happened, I looked at my husband and he looked at me. He went out and removed the batteries from the truck. No sound coming from the truck after that.

The second night, another toy gave another sound, but this toy needs to be pushed around before its produced the sound. I was really scared, and so was my sister who were in the other room. My hubby didn’t go out this time. Luckily, the sound didn’t last long.

The mysterious sounds kept happening every night at midnight. We didn’t know what to do, but to ease our fear, we kept on praying so that the mysterious thing would go away. We also read Quran a lot especially surah Yasin and ayat Kursi.

Alhamdulillah, after a week, the mysterious sound stops, but we continued to be cautious about it. When I moved out from the place, I was very glad.


Sekian..Salam

Cycle Of Life

I'm already accepting it. Now is the time to move forward to prepare for the day that I have to say goodbye. I guess this is the cycle of life. The old saying goodbye and the newborn saying hello.

Well, every day is precious to us. Every single minute we are trying to be with Abah but sometimes we can't because of work commitment or family commitment. But he is never far from our thoughts. He knows that we love him. We are trying to make him as comfortable as much as possible.

In this tough time, I have to thank Allah for giving me the strength to go through this. I know I have been praying every day, five times a day seeking Allah to ease Abah's pain. Now I have to step it up further. I need to do Sembahyang Hajat. I will sacrifice my sleep to do this special prayer, read Quran and Yassin. I'm not asking him to be like before because Allah promises everyone will face this. It stated in Quran and nobody can escape death. What I want is that he does not suffer or in pain until his last breath.

If you look at his face, he doesn't look like he is suffering from cancer. In fact, he looks much younger than his age. Healthy. Happy. That's how I to remember him as healthy and happy Abah.