Five Years Have Passed By

Tok passed away around 9pm on March 31 2004. She collapsed in the village's mosque after Isyak prayer. It was a Thursday night. Doctor said it was due to heart attack. But nothing was confirmed as we didn't do a post-mortem.

A was just three months old then. Alhamdullillah Tok got a chance to hold and take care of her for two weeks during my maternity leave. She had also managed to hold 'aqiqah' for A back in Trg despite being quite sick.

It has been five years since she left us. I don't always cry anymore every time I think of her. Time heals, they say. But honestly, sometimes I miss her love and attention. She was very vital to my growing up. She was instrumental in making what I am today. She was a disciplinarian who always pushed me to acquire knowledge. She was my 'mengaji' teacher who made me khatam the Quran when I was 8 years old. She was of so many roles to me and so dominant in my upbringing that she continues to be alive in my heart and mind although she was no more here.

I still regret many things that I did or didn't do for hers. But these days, I have also learnt to accept that everything that happened had been fated that way.

Of the many things she taught me, I really hope, at least, I could hold to one thing. Islam and its teaching.

But I don't remember when was the las time I read the Quran ...

What's Inside The TV

Do you know what is inside your TV? Yes, I mean INSIDE. Not what you can watch on TV, but rather what you can find inside your TV when you pry it open.

In our case, 40 color pencils of different sizes, one hair band, one chopstick, one comb, two toy knives and few other unidentified things. Wow, it's like magic. A 21" TV could actually keep so many things. If only a TV could be used as a drawer or storage area, I would have been more than happy to throw small things in it. At least, it had other functions than just an 'idiot box'.

Our children seemed to be very good at 'storing up' things. No wonder, color pencils kept disappearing and couldn't be rediscovered no matter how hard I had combed our small apartment.
It started with A. Once she had the ability to touch and hold things, she started using her fingers to full use. Among her success was digging out the channel buttons from our Philips TV, leaving two holes and making it impossible to change channels without a remote control or a chopstick. I know 'very good mothers' would have scolded me for letting the child touch the TV. But if you were a normal mother like me, you would understand how, despite my 'round-the-clock' effort to keep A from a TV, she would still manage to lay her tiny hands on it. So, finally, having a TV with a horizontal white line on its screen that refused to go away and two empty holes for its channel buttons was like a milestone to us, as that was when A reached 2 years of living.

When Sy started to be mobile with his hands and feet, he added more effect to what the sister had done. Making the holes deeper and stuffing the TV with whatever item that could go in. The final straw was when he inserted a coin. And that night, now that Sy is four and A is six, the TV finally blew for good. No matter how many times we tried, it didn't turn on. So I resigned to the fact that my Philips TV that was among the first electrical items that I bought, in 1999, with my own money, had gone forever. It was quite sentimental ... Well, I always found it hard to part with old stuffs.

So we got a chance to live without TV for two or three days. It was so quiet and I admitted I found it easier to communicate and get the children do what I wanted without a TV. They also didn't ask for TV. I think they also felt guilty and dare not mention about it because if they did, then they had to taste their own medicine (huhuhu ... a mother can be so bitter, sometimes). But, ironically, Am and myself coudn't really stand the silence. So one Saturday, we headed to our favorite shopping centre in Subang Jaya (in Subang Jaya saje ye) with one mission, only to 'look-look' for a TV, without wanting to buy it. It didn't take long for us to set our eyes on one, and within an hour, errr ... we bought a new Philips. Another Philips ... only this time it was a LCD 32". Well, I was soooo like me, a brand loyalist who always sticks to one brand. And it was sooooo like Am to just agree to whatever I want.

So, now our home and life have returned to normal.

When bathing Sy, Am was having a few words with him. The conversation went like this.

Am: Sy a good boy kan?
Sy: Ye
Am: Kalau ada TV tak boleh ....
Sy: (continued) rosakkan.
Am: Kalau dah rosak ......
Sy: Ibu dan ayah akan beli yg lain.

??????

I am not sure what kind of life-lesson we're actually teaching our children ...