Another Three Weeks In One

I have been postponing my posting again, three weeks since the last one!! No excuse though. Busy with the grandchildren? Yes. Procrastinate? Also yes.

Shaffik and family have returned to Bintulu. The house is suddenly very quiet. I sit in front of this laptop trying to recall the happenings of the last three weeks or so and write. There were two bereavements in the neighbourhood, Shaffik held a thanksgiving ceremony for newborn Haadieya Hasya, Ram’s left eye giving her some problems (the right eye was the one with cornea transplant), and other little happenings.

The two bereavements were one, an eighty five year old man who passed away in his home and the other, a thirty four year old doctor whom I was told, collapsed while performing an operation on a patient, and passed away in the operation theatre. It was apparently instantaneous. People were talking about it. Some wonder how, being in a hospital, he could not be saved he, being so young. He must have had a massive heart attack, they said. This sets me to recall some comments of previous deaths such as, “they were late in sending him to hospital,” or “died on the way to hospital, no time to save him,” and so on. Always trying to find blame for the deaths. The fact is, its “times-up”. When your time is up you go, no matter what people do to avoid it. Heart failures, accidents, and all the other causes of deaths are just reasons of, and set by the Almighty which no one can change. This is the facts of life and deaths. Thirty four years old, eighty five years old or anywhere in between, before and beyond, no one knows when it is “times-up”. So, do we want to be ready or will we ever be ready?

Shaffik held a thanksgiving ceremony for Haadieya Hasya on a Saturday morning. We catered food, briyani with mutton as the main feature, from a friend who runs a briyani restaurant not far away from our house. There was a good turn-out of relatives, neighbours and friends. Food prepared was sufficient, and just so, until the last guest left just before dusk. Sita and family came down from Kerteh, so also my mother and my sister Nor and family from Johore Bahru. Ram’s sister, Siti was also around. Rashidah had left for umrah the previous night thereby missing the function. During the ceremony of cutting her hair, Haadieya was crying all the time. Some say that this is a sign of her being sharp and outspoken when she grows up. Me, I just say yeah, good. What she actually grows up into will be a result of what and how the parents and other adults coach her in the growing up process. This is given in the Quran and hadith.

In the evening after the ceremony, Ram was complaining of pains in her left eye. This eye has similar problems as the right one before the cornea graft procedure. It is currently being treated with eye-drops six hourly. I suspect and I hope and pray that it is only because of her exerting herself too much on that day. She went to bed early and on Sunday I asked her to rest more and not do work in the house. By Sunday evening she said that the eye was much better and there was no more pain. Praise be to the Almighty. She will have to be more careful now. She cannot exert herself much anymore and I have difficulties convincing her this fact.

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Petaling Jaya