Hello. It’s 12: 43pm here in Malaysia.
I was lying down on my bed when I woke up to check my phone.
It’s 13th of April. 31 more day till I leave. Funny how time flies
so fast. Fast indeed. Back when I first started blogging, if you’ve been
following my blog, I wrote “6 more month to leave” and “5 more months to leave”
and now it has come down to 31 more days. A month. Scary? I know.
Anyway, that’s not the reason as to why I wanted to write
this post. I recalled an odd memory as I woke up this morning. I recently came
back from Saudi Arabia after performing my Umrah for the 3rd time.
When we were in Mecca, we had no choice but to mix with a lot of people from
around the world. To be honest, it was amazing to witness such unity. As I was
there, at times I had to squeeze in to pray because it was full. There was an
incident where I sat an hour early to find enough space. 10 minutes before the
adhan was heard, a certain lady from a certain race squeezed in for space but
there wasn’t any space left between my mother and I. Being the hot-tempered
woman I am, I was annoyed when she started to push my head and body to squeeze
in. I was telling my mother how rude and smelly she was and that she needed
deodorant and so I pinched my nose to vindicate how smelly she was since she
couldn’t understand English. My mother told me to calm down and recite the
Zikir. But no, I was too pissed to even do anything. After all, I came an hour
early just for that spot and it only took 10 minutes for some idiot to squeeze
in as if she’s small.
The next day, my mother bought tasbihs ( a certain kind of
beaded necklace for us Muslims to recite the Zikir while counting ) and she
distributed it to all those who looked like the lady who squeezed next to me
the day before. As usual, I got annoyed
and I asked my mother “Mama, why are you giving out to this people? They’re
annoying”
She replied me with a simple explanation:
“Anis tahu tak,some of these people come from (a certain
country) and they had to walk all the way from their country because their
country is going through poverty. Some of them do labor work. Imagine having to
walk how many miles just to worship Allah at His House? Would you walk that
far? Tak kesian ke? Look at their feet”
True enough. These people had feet that weren’t as manicured
or pedicured like mine. They had rough soles and some of the skins that were
intact to the feet were damaged. I felt guilty after what I did.
The main point here is, my parents are always teaching me
lessons in life that will help me realize what the world is made of one day. I
may not know what they know now but I do know that they’re the most humble
people I’ve ever known for 17 years.
My parents are a vital figure in my life. Sometimes when I
look at how my friends treat their parents, I feel blessed that I have a
relationship with my parents no other people have (in Malaysia, I guess). When
we speak about being open-minded, some parents can tell their kids “You have to
be open-minded” but they don’t show their kids how to do so. My parents on the
other hand are different. They make me think out of the box. My parents allow me to do things that certain
Malay parents restrict for as long as I don’t go against my religion and that I
know how to take care of myself, it’s fine with them. I’m attached to a string
where my parents learn how to pull and let go. When I was growing up, my
parents made sure that I grew up, where one day, I would tell them “I had the
best childhood”. True enough, I did. I watched videos of us when we were kids
and told my parents they did a remarkable job at handling the four of us and
that they gave us the perfect childhood. Which parent will build a mini farm
just so that the kids could learn how to interact with animals? Which parent
would build swing sets and other gymnastic equipment for the kids? Which parent
would be a sandbox for their kid? (I’m talking about parents in Malaysia, not
elsewhere). Yup, my parents. I was big enough to know the hard work they put
into just to build a swing set that is still intact till now.
Every parent would want the best for their children, no
doubt about that. Who wouldn’t want their children to get straight As or a
scholarship such as Khazanah or Bank Negara? Truth to be told, I would want
such a scholarship myself. The thing with my parents is that they don’t have
this Malay mentality where it works as such: “I’ll send my kid to a local
university and let her work it out on her own”. No, my parents are determined
to deport me to another foreign country (yes, I literally meant deport because
they want to get the hell out of Malaysia. For real) so that I could be
independent and think differently. They’ve always told me to study but never
really forced me to do so because to my mom it’s always “if you want it, you
would do everything in your will to do so”. If I had a problem with my studies,
I would go to them and complain as to why I failed to achieve something and
then they would do something about it. Find me a good teacher or enroll me in a
tuition center where they think will help me.
True enough, I got the best teachers during my SPM year with the help of
my mom. I was shocked to see my results as well. Didn’t expect such a thing
coming from someone who’s lazy as I am. Point is, you should never force a
child to study or beat him/her up just because she got bad grades. Instead,
advise and help them. Encourage them to think BIG. I told my parents I wanted
to take Aerospace Engineering and the were shocked. “Are you sure,Anis?” my mom
would repeat repeatedly, over and over again. I told her I was sure. Certain
parents would think “Mana nak cari kerja dekat Malaysia? Mana ada benda macam
tu. Susah nanti” but not my parents.
My mother’s comment about my major:
“Good. Stay in America, get a PR, work for Boeing and don’t
come back. Instead, I’ll come and live with you”
My parents have and always will be a role model for me in
every aspect of my life; past, present and future. My parents thought me that
there’s no other way to get your kids attention other than support, love and
encouragement. I mean, as a teenager what more do you want from your parents?
My parent’s are a kind where they never tell me they don’t
have any money left. No matter how they struggle to earn money, they’ve never
denied my request. Not a single one. (I’m talking about money wise here). My
siblings and I would always get books that at times, we don’t even use but they
never say NO.
My parent’s comment:
“I struggled to get money for education. I don’t want my
kids to go through the same thing I did”
If you noticed, my family and I tend to travel a lot. My
parents have this habit of checking cheap flights and when they do, they
immediately book it without our concern. When I look back at videos of us all
since we were a kid, my parents were never too strict like certain parents.
They let my siblings and I run free (and believe me, we ran like wild pigs
everywhere) and made tons of noises. I saw how struggling it was to raise 4
little kids who were so annoying back then. People tend to ask them how did
they manage such a thing but their respond was “I don’t know. I love to travel
with my kids”. Through traveling, my parents opened up my mind to a lot of
different things. They didn’t want my siblings and I to focus on what’s
happening in Malaysia but they wanted us to explore something different than
what was offered back at home. From there, my siblings and I learned how to
think BIG and to never settle for less. We started thinking “If my parents can
do this, I can do better than them”.
I’m so blessed. Amidst all this, my parents taught me to
always be humble in life and that everything that we have didn’t come from us.
It came from the big Guy up there. My parents thought me that “you should never
forget Him. After all, He has given everything”.
This post is dedicated to both my parents for all the
struggle they went through just to raise a hot-tempered, materialistic and
one-of-a-kind daughter ;) No matter how annoying I can be, know that my love
towards you both are unconditional and ever lasting.
