Category: Memory Lane

Mi Mancherai, Mummy

Today is one of those days when I feel like running to my mother’s grave and hugging her batu nisan and sob my heart out. I am feeling very down dooby doo down down today… and I miss my mother SOOOOOOO MUCH.

I didn’t think my life would change as it did when she returned to Rahmatullah. My whole word turned upside down, topsy turvy… I was left to deal with a father who would CONDEMN me, just for protecting Allahyarhamha Mummy’s interest. After 51 years of being married to her, the long-suffering and patient wife who never ever stood up against him… he can’t even bring himself to honour her memory and legacy in the way that she deserves to be honoured.

Ma, I wish I could turn back time and I would never have left your side for even a second. I would have bled myself dry just to make you happy. I would have spent those last moments before you breathed your last begging your forgiveness and telling you how much I love you and what a wonderful mother you were to me. You were the bestest ever. So many people I met, even after your return to Rahmatullah…. they would tell me how wonderful you were. To know you was to love you, Ma… May Allah SWT Grant you the Highest Jannah. May the barzakh be a peaceful and cool abode for you.

I miss you. I love you.

Loki

Loki as a kitten, soon after his brother left for the Rainbow Bridge

I’m going to take the chance to dash off an entry here whilst I can. Typing this as I lounge with Loki, my first ever pet cat after yonks of not keeping one. He was left on the grass verge outside my house when he was still a very small kitten, his eyes were barely open. He was with his brother Tom, who was killed in a very tragic incident that involved Joe. It hurts me to describe the incident so I shall not but I cried my eyes out for 3 days when Tom died.

Scarface, Abang Long Kawasan 😅

I took care of Tom and Loki as if they were my own babies. I would wake up in the wee hours of the morning and feed them specially formulated kitten formula from this teeny-weeny feeding bottle with the long rubber teats meant for newborn kittens. I placed a heating pad under the blankets they slept in, to simulate their (absent) mother’s body heat. Apparently, this is one of the main causes of death in abandoned kittens ~ hypothermia. They cannot generate their own body heat and need their mother’s body heat to warm them up. In the absence of a mother, a heating pad or anything else that can warm them up is required. (Thank God for the heating pad I had for my back pain!)

He will be 9 years old come September this year. He’s the most loving boy with a scar across his face from a fight he must have had with the neighbour’s cat. As I type this, lying on my stomach… he is lying between my calves, I can feel his wet nose on my skin 😅 and hear his loud purring. His ears are wonky because of the aural hematoma he suffered several months ago. Cost me a pretty penny at the vet’s but anything for my “firstborn” anak bulu.

Lina will be coming to see me later this morning to pass me a document I need in my legal action against the company that is suppose to pay me my dividend but is not. I just want my capital back, maaaan… These people are fast getting on my tits. Lina, as my Relationship Manager with the company at the time (she has since left) should have given me that document when I signed up. Her superior, that obsequious Mia Zundels Bukhara, should have done it too… but didn’t. Nak duit orang aje tapi service ke laut.

My social anxiety is causing me to dread the meeting. I am such an anti-social beast these days that I truly dread meeting people. Why can’t I just run my life without having to meet people? 😅

The Correspondent

Today I received a Whatsapp message from Ben, the boy who used to write me every day when we were both in the Sixth Form in our respective boarding schools in Ol’ Blighty.

He was a nerd of the first water, with thick Coke bottle glasses but me and my nerd-fetish had the greatest crush on him. He was my classmate in that preparatory college in DU, just months before we left for Londres in August 1988. We barely spoke to each other when we were classmates except for the time we both worked on the batch’s newsletter. I’d ride in his car with eight (❗️) other chaps to the pizza parlour after a particularly harrowing day trying to beat the deadline. Once we reached Blighty our friendship blossomed even further.

Everyone thought he was the Harry to my Sally, in fact we went to watch that movie together. We went to watch more than a few movies together, actually.. I remember “Silence of the Lambs” being one of them and I hid under his jacket during the gorier scenes. That was at the Empire at Leicester Square, just a hop, skip and jump away from my uni. He studied quantum physics at Imperial and I was at that old Leftie uni on Houghton Street.

We were always together, until I met Wes. I don’t know how he felt when I started dating Wes seriously. Ben and I were never boyfriend and girlfriend, I actually saw him as rather.. asexual. I never felt any sexual tension or anything with him… he’d hang out in my apartment till late and I’d yawn and say goodnight and retire to my room. That was the kind of relationship I had with him.

Ben was a witness at my nikkah with Wes. Wes used to take to him quite nicely those days. When Ben met his wife-to-be, he brought her to see me first, before he brought her to see his parents. He eventually married her (she happened to be my senior at that school on Bukit Merbah). I wasn’t even invited to the wedding… which I thought was rather strange. I always felt that she was never very comfortable with Ben seeing me, even in our large group of friends… the batch of students who were all sent to Blighty straight after the SPM results were announced.

I recently heard that he is now divorced (separated?) from his wife. He has 3 daughters, all grown ~ 2 have graduated and one is still in university. The last time we really spoke was after our Haj. Coincidentally, we performed our Haj in the same year ~ 2010. He took the muasassah package and I was on THTS’ Nilam package with Allahyarham Brix, so our paths never crossed whilst there.

He has run into some rather hard times now and needs some … help. Even though it is not easy for me now either, I feel I must do whatever I can to help ease his burdens. May Allah SWT make it easy for my friend Ben and open all paths of rizq for him. May Allah SWT makes things easy for me each time I try to lessen the burdens of His Creation.

Aameen 🤲🏻