....a time to sacrifice..a time to remember the departed..

..during festivals we remember the dead..as usual, after the solat aidil-adha, the jumaah, the congregation will make a bee-line for the graveyard adjacent to the mosque..as my children gathered with their mother around their grandfather's plot, I sat back a little, taking in the scene...

.."we bid thee  peace..oh, ye of the grave..God willing we will follow thee...soon"...

..I sat there on the wakaf as I try to remember those near and afar who have departed before me..

..images of the dead  flashes through my mind..except for my father, Hamid bin Daud, who died a few months after I was conceived in early 1945...he died during an unsettling time, when the country was occupied by the Japanese..and there were no pictures of him...

..but images of others who were once dear to me were clear and true..my grandfather, Sulong bin Lassim, who died more than 40 years ago..he was about the only grandfather that I ever knew..I remember his fondness for ikan haruan and other such fishes found in abundance in padi fields around the house in Kubang Kerian..

..my mother Che Minah bt Sulong, who died 14 years ago in 1996..my son, Amnan Fahim, 20 years ago, 40 days after he was born..my uncle, Zakaria bin Sulong, more than 30 years  ago, of a heart attack at the airport, after stopping by my house in Jalan Pengkalan Chepa..he was the uncle who took me in, treated me like his own son, and threw a shoe at me for too much playing around instead of concentrating on my studies..another uncle Zainal Abidin bin Sulong, a few months ago..

..and friends..friends who once shared their last kopek with me..who helped me in time of need..and gave ungrudgingly..friends who shared the dingy, concrete floor of a room in Kuala Lumpur..who died before me..

..images of them came back to me as I sat there on the wakaf on the morning of Aidil Adha...may the Lord shower His Blessings upon them...may the Lord forgive all of their sins...may they be taken in and placed among those who were with iman..in Your Syurga Firdaus..Your Garden of Edin..

..amin.....