A quiet Eid

It was a quiet Eid for me by all counts. We left Kelana Jaya at about 6:30pm on Friday, the eve of Eid. We had brought along some dates and drinks so that we can buka puasa in the car. I thought that by driving during iftar we would escape the expected jam as most people would stop at the rest areas for buka puasa. I may be right or maybe most people have already reached home by the time we hit the highway. There were a lot of cars but the traffic was moving. However all the rest areas were full to the brink when we passed them. We finally reached my kampong at about 8:15pm, not bad at all.

All my siblings and their families have reached home. Two have even left for their in-laws after sleeping one night at the house. One of them is just about 2km away while the other is in Gemas. But the kids who were left behind were having a ball of a time. Apparently, I now have 36 nephews and nieces. Add that to my 5 children, my late father now have 41 grand children and one great grandchild.

I woke up very early on Saturday, gathered about 10 nephews, got in my Naza Ria and visited the graves of my parents. A few of my nephews attended religious schools so we had no problems looking for people to recite the doa. I had my Eid prayers at the usual place, the kampong's PAS centre. I've been doing this for several years now, ever since my late father left UMNO and joined PAS at the height of the Reformasi years. While waiting for the prayer to start, I cannot help but felt sad that my father is no longer around. He would be one of those who would recite the takbir.

After prayers, I went home straight to sallam and seek forgiveness from my Makcik. I sat by her side all the time as I know she will feel very alone receiving the sallams from her children, in-laws and grand children (almost 50 of them) without her husband for the first time. Sure enough she cried. I cannot help but feel sad myself.

After that I took my family to visit a few relatives who are closed to me. My siblings grew up in Singapore while I was brought up by my grandfather in kampong so I had a different set of people to visit from my siblings. To cut a long story short, I just got to know that two of the people whom I addressed as Mak Long and Mak Ngah passed away very recently, one just before Ramadhan and the other 10 days before Shawal. I was quite close to Mak Long and I did not visit her last Eid. I can still remember the look of her granddaughter when I asked her "Mak Long mana?" when I visited her house. Apparently everybody forgot to inform me about Mak Long's demise. I realised that a lot of my uncles and aunties are indeed getting a lot older. I have to take time to visit them more often, lest I'll be missing them forever before I know it. I managed a few houses before all my kids started complaining about being tired and wanting to go home. At night I went to visit my sister-in-law (my wife's sister) in Serkam. She has been very helpful to our family since the day I got married. By the time I got home it was almost midnight and I'm almost half dead.

The next day, it was another round of house visiting. This time I brought my Mak Cik back to her kampong in Batu Berendam and then visited a few of my late father's old friends. I also managed to squeeze in a visit to Cikgu Rejab's house in the afternoon. He was one of the hostel master's who took care of me when I was in High School. As usual he was so happy whenever I managed to visit him. Without fail he will remind my children to "belajar rajin2, jadi macam ayah". My children must have been fed up with this reminder. But I feel we should take more time to visit our ex-teachers who have done so much for us but got back so little in return. Their only satisfaction, in my opinion, is seeing their students succeed and showing their gratitude towards their teachers.

The night of second Shawal, we had planned to gather at the local warung. We did not expect too many people as we know many will be busy with their own plans. But I was pleasantly surprised as we had Rahman Ali, Shafie Ibrahim, Hisham Daud, Mokhlis Maizan, Juwara Abdullah, Md Nor Johan, Sanusi Jalil, Ibrahim Jagung, Azman (I did not recognise him) and Azhar Haron. Even Capt Dato Rahim Aziz and his brother dropped by for a while but did not managed to stay as they had a family gathering at the time. Rahman Ali had postponed his trip to his in-laws in Batu Pahat just to be with us. Md Nor had to leave early as his wife kept calling. Juwara also had to leave early as his father in law is waiting for him to return before he locked the house. But early means 12:00 midnight. By 1:00am I had to leave too as I began to receive repeated smses from my wife. You see I promised her that we will leave "very early" the next morning for Kuala Lumpur to avoid the jam. But it was a worthwhile night. Juwara took a lot of pictures which I hope he will post to our e-group.

As promised, I leave early by (8:00am) the next morning and headed for Banting to visit my wife's auntie.

So it was a quiet Syawal. I had planned to visit more houses but there just wasn't enough time. I wonder when there will be enough time if we do not make the extra efforts.

SELAMAT HARI RAYA, MAAF ZAHIR BATIN