My grandsons

To my darling grandsons, Adam Ali and Aman Ali,

Nana's eyes filled with tears with a heart so big with pride staring at your pciture. How beautiful the outcome of a genetic poutpouri of Malaysia's three major ethnic groups (malay, chinese and indian) So proud of you both and so full of hope for a better future for our country where racism will stop rearing its ugly head. Nana remembered the times when your great grandparents tried to stop Nana and Ah Kong from starting an inter-racial relationship. Yet, look at you both now. 

smile emoticon

My prayers for both of you to become one of the world leaders of the Muttaqeen who practises wisdom based on compassion and love.

...My Lord, grant them in this world good and the hereafter good and protect them from hellfire".

- NANA Lina-

A Licensed Counsellor in the making...

From Birth to Death...

The last two weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster; beginning with stress then relief that the logbook is now completed, excitement in seeing my lovely daughter and her family and her growing tummy. Soon i will be a grandmother twice over. A little sad to leave them after a week, joy in exploring Gua Tempurung and then soaking ourselves in the Sungai Klah hotspring.

And then it was like waves of grief after grief. Before i could savour the week's lovely experiences, we received bad news. and then even before my brother-in-law was cremated, we received another heartbreaking news; of the sudden death of my daughter's boyfriend. He is not even 21 and now he is gone.

It is easier to accept the death of someone who had been diagnosed of stage 4 cancer. You know that it is kinder to have his life taken away then to have his suffering prolonged. But no matter what, he is loved and will always be missed. Certain things that my brother-in-law had said, i will always remember. May his soul rest in peace and may his loved ones be blessed with much abundance.

I have only spoken to the young man twice; once at my house and another time when he was sitting in my daughter's car looking distressed.  i had this overwhelming feeling enveloping me after speaking to him. This young man loves my daughter! Intituively i know he is a good person and i was proven right.

To the parents of Ahmed Osama Heiba, you have raised your son very well. I am honoured to know him and my daughter is blessed to love him. As a mother, i grieve with your family, and as a mother of my daughter it pained me to see her sadness.

May Allah forgive him all his sins and put him among the Believers, the Righteous, the Prophets and Messengers  and grant him Jannah. And may his family be blessed abundantly for their patience.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihirojiun..

"ibu, what is happiness to you?"

Few days back my son and i had one of our rare lunches together. The days that i tried as much as possible to delay has arrived; of that him being a grown man with a life of his own and would be having his own family in the very near future (okay, yang, when is that happening?) That reminds me of the conversation i had with him when he was only 7 years old when he complained that i was spending all my time with the baby. I told him that "...i cannot be too close with you anymore because one day you are going to get married and you need to make your wife the closest person to you."

I have heard of so many stories of women complaining about their husbands' mother interfering in the running of their homes. Unfortunately husbands tend to think it is cute that their mothers are there "helping out" in the household. No, babe, no woman likes another woman in her turf unless that woman is the wife's mother. You don't make you mother your bestfriend, you make your WIFE your best friend because you need to invest in a team of people, and these little people need to know their mother is very important to you. Your job is to reassure your mother that she has raised you up to be someone her grandchildren would have good memories of when you are dead. Complicated? no! i think at the end of the day, for the sake of our descendents, we want to leave a history of us that they could be proud of. Like it or not, what we do today will affect our children and grandchildren.

Again, i am digressing. Seems that i tend to digress ... i think old age does that to me...there is a saying that old people talk to much.

Anyway, we had "nasi campur", sat at one table already occupied by a salt-and-pepper haired malay chap. We continued with our varied conversation. Then my son asked ... heck, i can't remember his exact question. But he said if he is rich then he will be happy. I said "don't use external factors to determine your happiness because you are going to end up very unhappy." Of course, when you are rich you will be able to be unhappy in comfort, better than suffering in discomfort. Then again, what is the objective of being rich? Because then travelling makes us happy, at least for awhile, and to travel you need money. Good food costs money; doesn't matter that it will come out as shit 4 hours after that. Extra money means being able to distribute it to others and that "giving" evoke good feelings in us. Getting that branded clothes tells others that i am "successful" because i have money and you don't and that means i am smarter than you...and so on and so forth.

Truth is, the only person who can make you happy is yourself. The only person who can fill your void is yourself and the only person whom you can permanently be in love with is yourself. Until you feel you are complete, you will always be on a quest to find something or someone to try to "complete" you and that is the formula to failure... to discontent ... to continue doing stuff you wouldn't want your grandchildren to know...  ;))

...and oh....we were so engrossed in our conversation, we ended up paying for the stranger...why the heck did the waiter put his bill on our tab???








































A Licensed Counsellor in the making...

the clutter

"ibu, when are you going to blog?"
"Mak Teh, update your blog lah"

The problems with blogging when prople know who you are is that ...well, it is difficult not to make your thoughts known and not have people who know you say "hey, she is writing about me!". In other words, you would still need to filter your words which means you can't write the things you want to write and not affect the people you know. Right?

But since they insist that you write... well, okay... but don't say i did not tell you so. :))

There are things in your life that you know one day you have to let go. For instance, i know my mom would leave me permanently one day. It is easy to count my mother's birthday. I just add 30 years onto my own birthday. In 10 days' time would be my 54th birthday. 54! If nothing change, i would be taking my EPF in one year's time. I used to say that i would withddraw those money, splurge it all .... because i expect to die in that year. Saying it years ago sounds so funny but when that figure is only about 1 year from now, it no longer feels like a joke. The fact that God has given me this so much years is already a miracle in itself. It means, looking back over those years and evaluating if you have done everything in your checklist or did life turns out as what you imagine it to be when you were young.

Ok. Unfortunately, oday''s blog wasn't about that. I digress.

It is about my mom and dad.

A couple of weeks after she left, I cleaned her room. Somehow i never do that when she was around. I felt it was an invasion of her privacy, an invasion of her space that she shared with my dad. There were still many things that i have not sorted out since my dad's death; certain remnants that i could not throw away until i realised that my own death is looming. So much stuffs from my own parents and that on top of my own clutter; my children would have a hell of a time cleaning our mess.

But in every "mess" tells a story. I found my dad's diary; infact two. He uses our full name in his diary. and i am glad that he wrote his diaries because now i can still have a part of him. One dated while i was still in college. He gave me about half of the pension he received, for my allowance. Truly a wonderful father uncomplainingly bringing up 9 children and trying to make ends meet.

He wrote about my parents' sadness having to let his son fly thousand of miles away.

Now you,  my darling children, can have tiny pieces of your grandparents as part of your own memories about them at the time when you were not even born.

I attended a grief workshop way before rummaging through my parents' stuff. I thought i had closure of my dad's death yet when we went into small group and i became the psuedo client, i recall the time of his death and the pain is still acute.
I shared to the big group the guilt i felt for what i thought i was partly to blame in hastening his death but a kind participant who identified herself as a doctor came up to me dispelled my misconception. What a relief!

So my children, whatever happens after our death, you will always feel guilty for thinking you did not do enough for your parents. Please don't! We as parents have done the best we could under the circumstances, to raise you. All we want is for you all to be happy and lead a peaceful life. THAT would make us happy...well, at least that would make me happy... so that the cycle of life continues.  Ibu loves you all very much. That includes my nieces and nephews, if you are also reading this. :)))

which means, i have to go to today's wedding. My work can wait.

the cute sweet one..

we did a workshop on setting healthy boundaries in a healthy romantic relationship yesterday.

it was a hodge podge of activities that we drew up within less than a week. Desperaton can make one do wonders. One improvises as one goes along with whatever resources one has.

The group activity on constructing a building was really an eye opener. Each team consist of a couple, a helper and a saboteur. The function of the saboteur was to...what else...sabotage the couple from completing the building. The couple construct their relationship with the building as a metaphor of the end product of their relationship. If the two of them are in sync, even without words  they would be able to communicate to each other their personal vision of desired outcome.

Every couple would have their own ups and downs: the Helper is what connects the two while the Saboteur is what pulls them part.

Sometimes in life we don't realise the saboteur is the one who looks so cute and sweet, to the point that we become distracted; losing focus of who is our real partner. At times, we are able to turn that negativity into something positive for our relationship. And sometimes the saboteur actually becomes our ally.