Cakap Cakap..getting sentimental.

My father lost my mother, his beloved partner in life many years before he left us. How he must have grieved for her for all those years and yet I was not fully aware of what he must have gone through until now – many years after my father himself passed away. I say until now because at 62 I know a bit more about life. About what it is to not have those that you love around you, with you and being together with you. I hope that I will go before those that I love leave me – my wife, my children and their loved ones – for I know not how I can live without any of them.

 

So now I know how it must have been for my parents when I went to live in Australia taking my wife and their granddaughter, my daughter Terrina, with us. My son Zack was not yet on the horizon. Last night through the wonders of Skype we spent an hour spending quality time with my daughter, Emmett and Isabel. Throughout that hour my smile never left me. My wife and me never tire of these wonderful time that we spend with them through this wonder of Skype..

 

Then I remember my father, my mother. It is hard to understand how after all these years the thought of them can still tug at my heartstrings. Can still make my eyes misty with memories of good and happy times spent just being together, on holidays and going through life with those you love. After my Mother died, taking the cue from my Father, we no longer saw Hari Raya as a day of celebration for the family. How can we when what has held my family together was gone. When I remember my mother it was always her smile that gets me. She was one of those people who was kind, decent and totally without malice . I say this not because she was my mother but because she always put family and other people before herself. Like my wife who cannot find fault with our Terrina and Zack, so too was my mother unable to find fault with any of us. Religion was her guide in all things and my Father and her Family, her life. It is hard for me to understand why God found it necessary to take her away from us so soon. And please none of that “God needed her more than Us” stuff. She was gone too soon.

 

My Father was somebody I tried to do better then – and never did. We had our quite moments together when he spoke his mind to me and said what was in his heart mostly when we were on the sea on his beloved Widuri or when we were by the sea – but we disagreed more then we agreed on most things. I think we were two strong individuals playing off each other. I lost all the time but in losing I became more determine to live my own life they way I want and in doing so I became what I am today. Happy and contented living in the self that I and my Father have created. He is my hero for I have never met a man that I have admired more. If there is one memory of my Father that lingers in my head it was the night that I arrived back from Perth to KL to be with my Mother in her last few hours on this earth. I arrived home and for the first and only time in my life, hug my Father before he could say or do anything to prevent me from doing so. For once in his life I saw my Father unsure of what to do now that he knew he was going to lose his partner in life. My Father was of the age where hugging your Father was simply not the done thing. Now I hug my family every moment I can. It broke my heart for my Brothers to not tell me that he was dying. That they did not tell me that he had died is unforgivable.

 

My Father loved my mother as I now love my wife. I can be driving alone in my car and just thinking of my wife makes me smile. We both smile when we think of our children and their love ones. My Father always had my Mother in his thoughts and Family came first. I do the same for mine. I love my wife. She makes me happy. I would rather spend time at home with her then be anywhere else. Life is good.