From my Heart....

Its early Thursday morning here…and I have been up for a while. My morning started well with some mail from my number one daughter from so far away….in Canada. She is well. Her Emmett is good and our grandchildren, Izzy and Sofie, are now driving her crazy going into their 40^th day of their Summer holiday. So all is normal in her household.

My wife is still blissfully asleep in the bed beside my workspace. And so is my son….my Nescafe to my left…and listening to Whitney heart rendering ”Run To You” pulling at my heart strings. LIFE IS GOOD! 

And then as I go to my emails I get Selamat Hari Raya wishes from friends from all over…and I am brought back to the reality of today. It is Hari Raya today…..and my first thoughts are of my Mother and my Father….gone away many years ago from my life. Gone from my life but not from my consciousness. Gone from my sight but not from my love…..and gone forever and yet still within me everyday and for every moments when I am happy, sad and reflective….and I wonder if it will be the same for my own children when I myself am gone? But that is for the future and for me the future is still far away. For now I live my life as if today, this minute, this hour is my last…..and for the most important people in my life, my family, I never allow myself to forget to remember that!

If I leave them even for a few minutes, even to run to the corner store to get a bottle of A&W for my wife (that’s her favorite drink!) – I only do so after telling my wife and my son that I will be gone only for a few minutes and that I will see them soon. If I will be away longer …then a hug and kiss for my wife and a “see you Zack” for my son. Then, and only then will I be on my way.

Yes today is Hari Raya…but if truth be told the emails from my daughter this morning meant more to me that what today is. For me Hari Raya stopped when my Mother left us many many years ago. And then when my Father was gone too….nothing of Hari Raya was left for me. Blasphemous? Maybe…but that is life for me and I am comfortable with it….so leave me to be alone with the life I choose. Do not bother me with your comments on how and what I should do with Ramadan or Hari Raya.

And sometimes on this day I do think about the sister and two brothers I left in Malaysia….not with any sadness or happiness…only with the acceptance that family is what you make of it. And like friends you can choose what you make of them. For me my life life with my sister and my two brothers  - like Hari Raya – started falling apart when my Mother left us and when my Father died, our family died with him….all I have now is my own family -and that is enough. And nobody can and will take it away from me. I promise myself that no matter what, I will never ever let them go from my heart and from my own life. At 65 I have been true to that promise I made many years ago…and I know that I will continue to be true to that promise in the years that I still have left. And because I can….my life is good!  

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing."

Muhammad Ali