My thoughts and I...

Friday, 29th July. I was so tired this weekend. Last weekend I was back in KL/Melaka. Alhamdulillah this week was another 4 days break due to Sunday and Monday being off for Larian 1Malaysia and Awal Ramadhan respectively. So, Friday was a day of marketing and stocking up food. I had to cook the itik that nenek Ama kirim through Suri. I had never cooked itik but I had already asked my ERT teachers and so, I decided to cook rendang. That took me almost 21/2 hours! Sedap juga. Tender. By the time I cleared out the marketing and preparing the chili, boiled the syrup for fasting month, made the gula melaka jelly and prepare the peanuts for the sauce later....it was almost 5pm.

Abd. Aziz bin Bachee - my father, my protector, my confidante, my whole life....

I was in the mood for doing something to fight off my frustration from Thursday. I took the old letters that I wanted to burn. Slowly I sat at the garage out there and started to burn the old letters one by one. Burned my past and feelings. Until I found Bapak's letters. I reread the letters and had a good cry. He wrote it when he was still suffering from the after effects of his second stroke. I had just gone to college and wrote to complain about my life there. He was a good and prompt letter writer. Very polite and telling about things at home. Missing me and telling me that he would prepare my favourite food when I came home next. You felt safe, protected, loved and yet you knew that you were free to fly anywhere. He was always there waiting for you. I kept the letters and had a good cry. Maybe that was what I needed. After Thursday's frustrations and no one really understood not even Noor, who just made it sounded so frivolous, I felt comforted. Thanks, Pak, though you were no longer around, you never actually left me, do you? I hope I have done the right thing for my children. I let them go where they need to go but let them feel that they can always come home to be protected, shielded and loved.

The comfortable feeling of being alone but never lonely. The house being the end lot and next to the waste land with no neighbours gave me the privacy to be on my own. I have been on my own and alone since Noor works until 10pm that I hate people to intrude into my aloneness uninvited. I am more protective of my aloneness now that the boys have all gone off pursuing new lives and horizons. Let them soar and fly. There's always a safe harbour at home as long as I am here.