What is kasih sayang, when this worldly love is just a particle of a mist from God’s boundless oceans of mercy. I long then, the feeling and the smells of God’s vast love..

I went back to Kedah recently to meet the parents. Alhamdulillah, both of them are in their very pink of health.

I must admit that among my siblings, I am the one who spent the least time with them. Having spent 5 years in a boarding school since such a young age of 13, and another 5 years for my tertiary education, I must say that my relationship with my parents, especially the big boss (or ayah as we called it at home), is not as close as my other siblings.

I envy them really. When my younger brothers can talk with him for hours on almost everything under the sun (yes, literally almost everything, from their frenzied and hysterical obsession with cars and local football development, to the most sensitive topic of mandi wajib and marriage), I can hardly find anything to talk about, despite the fact that I am his first children.

As far as I can recollect, when we were small, he was a very fierce father. Ayah used to whack the whole lot of us, his first three boys, using his black leather belt, to the extent that emak has to stop him and lock us up in a room for the rest of the evening. Reason being: (1)Abang Tam who is the youngest and as the name suggest, is slightly tanned than us was hit and injured while brawling with the kid next door, and (2) the brothers did not protect the youngest brother and fight for him back. That was well fifteen or more years back.

During those days when we lived in Pasir Besar Negeri Sembilan, he always brought me along for his fishing trip at Sungai Muar. I can still remember the day that he quit his fishing obsession altogether when he accidentally hit a cow while riding his Honda Fame. The mystery of how on earth that he managed to hit the bloody cow right in a middle of the day remain unsolved. Due to concussion, he was admitted to Segamat hospital. It is just impossible to forget what a day it was. Emak cried continuously while waiting for Ayah outside the Emergency room. I was busy watching and savouring the ambience in the waiting room. I was simply hypnotised observing the doctors and nurses bustling in and out of the emergency room. Abang Ngah (the second son) was running frantically here and there enjoying his freedom from Emak’s oversight. Abang Tam on the other hand was crying like hell after his persistent childish demand for air Milo kotak from the vending machine was persistently being ignored by Emak. Truth to be told, Emak being herself, while rushing and desperately dragging the three of us to Segamat hospital which is literally one full hour away from our home, had forgotten to bring along her purse. I just couldn’t be thankful enough that an old Chinese man, after observing the havoc that these two stooges made in the waiting room, came to us and offered us $1 coins each for us to belanja. Reminiscing this with Emak last weekend, it came to my realisation that this is the same old man who prophesied that I am going to be a well-to-do man in the future..huhu. How future is the future, nobody knows but Allah. After all, it is just a plain prophecy.

Albeit being lowly educated due to the financial constraint of my grandfather, Ayah is a man of a strong conviction, principle and determination. Thank you Ayah, for authoring his own latih tubi buku 555 (a small book which is usually used to record grocery stores credit purchases) for me to work out with under his strict and harsh supervision, that for this big effort of him, I can read and count when I was even five-year old.

We moved to our own house at a small village in Kedah when I was in standard 4. He bought the house way before Abang Ngah was born, using the gratuity money that he earned when he retired from the army. If not because of him opted for the lump-sum payment instead of complacently earning the petty monthly allowance, we would still be renting a house. If I ever be in his shoe at that time, I wonder whether I would make the same irrevocable decision.

I managed to score decently for my UPSR that I was offered a place in a boarding school, somewhere in Negeri Sembilan….to be continued.