..one still night...

..her stirring awakes him..he stretches out and she curls as he gently strokes her..through the window, a waning moon sends in its silvery light and with its soft glow he casts a sleepy eye at the clock looking down upon him benignly..it is 3 o'clock in the morning...by the time he comes out of the bathroom, she stretches, acknowledging him with a small meow...as he dresses for prayer, she rubs herself against his legs..he pushes her aside, and stood in a 'qiam'...Allah...hu akbar...and she lies in a crouch next to his prayer-mat...

Lord, Your Mercy is like the rain that falls unabated from the heaven above..and Your Compassion the clouds from which burst forth the rain....I am never among those deserving your Edens and Heavens...but I am too weak and puny for the pain and suffering of your punishment and purgatory...I seek your Forgiveness..and I seek Your Mercy...

..he sits there a moment in the stillness, suddenly aware of her purring as unconsciously he strokes her...

..Lord, let this tears be a testimony to a pair of eyes that reach out to the deepest abyss of my heart...  with only one desire...accept me, Lord, as your guest, that I may feast those eyes on your House....that I may cry out...


..

..the return..

..it is the beginning of those time again..when children from the cities make a beeline for their kampongs...you can feel the anticipation in the air..as Bachok braced itself for the influx of cars and people, PaRam operators take stock of the situation, knowing that in the final stretch of Ramadan, sales will, inevitalbly doubled, maybe trebled...and parents, like pakmat, await their return anxiously, praying for their safety...whilst looking forward to breaking of the fast together..

...but not all the children returned to the awaiting arms of their mothers, or fathers..for some it is a return to a memory and an empty house, having lost both parents earlier...but they returned, nonetheless, to where their roots are...and for the next few days, they and their children add laughter and cacophony to a house once bare and lonely...a house that was once a  home..and amid the joy and laughter, they are once more the children of before..treading gingerly through their memory..

..this is such a house...its owner, Mok Zah, or Mek to her children died a year ago of kidney failure..widowed more than a decade earlier, she would sit alone in front of the kitchen, awaiting any of her 8 children's return...bereft of children, a house is not a home...as this year, this house sits alone...awaiting her children to 'balik kampong'...when once more it will come alive...

..dreams and regrets..

..pakmat's home in Bachok..

...once, decades ago,  I used to dream of having a house set up on a hillock, among verdant trees, facing a lake..a wife with long flowing, hair... you know, Nancy Kwan was the dreamgirl then, resulting in many a young man having wet dreams....and a speed-boat...but I never thought of children, a four-wheel drive was in the picture...but never children...

..Nancy Kwan..pic googled..

 ..but children showed up after marriage...and when you were the marrying kind, like I once was,  you will have more of them...and I went on to sire 13...which is, of course, a sizeable number, by any account...when I first got married, and she got pregnant soon after, I thought maybe we will have two..or three..but definitely not seven...and I went on to have another six.....

..3rd daughter Ida's 3rd birthday..the one that flew the nest
and setup her own in a foreign land..

...but I met a woman in my kampong, in her fifties, who had 13 children... a villager who lived off the land with her villager husband...and I looked at her in awe and amazement as she chatted away about her children with the wife when I gave her a lift home one day from Balai Islam, Kota Bharu...it must have been hard, I thought..yes, she chirped, almost reading my thoughts..but it is not that we had them simultaneously...all were breastfed and the eldest among them helped...food was scarced but they grew whatever they need..planted padi and water was free..and most of them went on to complete their studies, entered institute of higher learning and became teachers and such...

..there were bad times and there were good times, although rare...but through it all she never lost faith...
in God's bounty...and in her husband...and together they scraped through each day...eat whatever they managed to put on the table and never dream of what was impossible for them to have...and pakmat was silenced into a quiet reverie...thinking of what might have been...

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams...John Barrymore

..at 66..

..pakmat..blogging at 66..

..at 66 you do not anymore hold on to whatever perceived youth that you have...you accept aging for what it is, a natural process..and you remember with a chuckle those futile times of dyeing your hair in an attempt to push back Father Time....and the time you marry for the third time a very much younger wife..hoping that her youth will make you youthful....only to realised that her youth made you older...

..at 66 I am thankful for whatever parts of my body that still work...not at its former premium pace, but still working, nonetheless...and you accept those that have gone...or ceased to work as some things inevitable....like teeth and memory...sometimes you remember with detailed clarity incidents of 20years ago...but cannot seemed to remember where you placed the car keys...or left your wife at the mosque after subuh prayers and drove back alone...forgetting that you went together...

..at 66 you do not care anymore for birthdays..those are stuff for your children and grandchildren...no..not for you...but you measure your years, nonetheless...from one Ramadan to another...for when a Ramadan comes, you remember the last...where you cupped your hands in a prayer...and asked Him forgiveness for your sins and transgressions..and asked of Him longevity...that you will be around for the next Ramadan...

..at 66 you do not have anymore a future..for you are the future..but you have a past...for as far as your memory can takes you...though you do not dwell too much on them, you are always aware of them..accepting those things that is now beyond you and revelling in the things you used to be capable of doing...

..at 66 you are appreciative of those little mercies that He blessed you with...the love of your children...a wife's devotion...a neighbour's generosity...and other little things that once you do not give a hoot..or a care..

..at 66 a lovers' forever' is but a second...

..at 66 I become a bit cranky...