Sunday, June 28, 2009

A Request

“For your love, I have everything from my blood to the essence of my existence” – Juanes.

When I was a child, most of my childhood times were spent with my mum. My sister and brother were studying in the university during that time, and my father was away from home for months. We were not a well-off family; in fact, my father had to make ends meet especially when my other siblings entered university. For my father, furthering your studies in university means more money, to earn more money, means he had to work real hard. I was only a child then, so I didn’t understand why my father was such an invisible man, I could hardly see him.

Most of the time, I spent with my mum, helping her to arrange the clothes that she had sewed and tailored. Sometimes, she even made me rag-dolls made from pieces of colourful cloths because we could not afford to buy toys. Money was something hard for us, but that didn’t deprive us in living life to the fullest. I could still remember the time when mum bought me “Vitagen” and I didn’t know that it should be kept refrigerated, so I kept it in the food cupboard because we had no refrigerator. The next day, I felt frustrated because the Vitagen had turned stale and I blamed my mum for that. I remembered I cried so loudly and it was quite funny because my mum told me that the Vitagen was for the rich, not for the poor people like us who had no fridge.

My mum is actually very particular about what goes inside my stomach and brain. Although we couldn’t afford expensive food, she would make sure that I had raisins, fishes, and eggs as my daily meals. We bred a few chickens, therefore we would we be able to trade the eggs for the fishes. We had no problem for chicken eggs because our chicken would lay their eggs everyday and everywhere, most of the time was in the bushes. There were times when my mum disappeared in the morning because she had to find the hidden eggs in the bushes early in the morning just to prepare breakfast for me. Since there were only two of us in the house, sometimes we had too many eggs to be eaten because my mum believed that eggs should be consumed as fast as possible so that we won’t lose the vitamins. When I grew older, I knew that she just wanted me to have the best.

Mum was not someone who lavishes her children with luxury, she could not even afford to. But she always remind me, it’s not the things that you have makes who you are, it is the how you value and appreciate things around you, although it is the smallest, or the cheapest or it may be very insignificant towards you. She always emphasized the importance of education, although she could not afford to buy me story books and colouring books, it is no problem to me because I always get “thrown” books from the recycle centre in front of my house where my free time were spent reading those thrown and torn books that I’ve found.

3 comments:

kamilah ahmad @ ahmaddiah said...

an incredible journey wani..
we all had our past life, no matter sad,happy or glorious the moments could be..

sedeynye bile terkenang pengorbanan mak.. jdlah anak yg solehah yer wani syg, jaga aurat, jg hubungan :p

wanderfulmadnificent said...

whoa, the starting of an autobiography, something similar to slyvia plath perhaps? hehe :p

April Fimbristylis said...

oit milah, cam ada maksud tersirat je... kekeke... haha.. maddy, silvia plath tu org len punya idol.. weehee..