ABANG.....again!

Three days after coming home from Seoul, we went to Penang to fetch Abang. The madrassah gave all students 5 days leave for Eidul Adha. He raced towards us and hugged Mama tightly...(in front of so many onlookers!)

Mama: "SO, you DO miss me!!"

Abang: "But of course!!"

Mama: "But you said you didnt miss us at all!!"

Three weeks before, exactly a week after being apart, we called him at the school......

Mama: "Abang, do you miss me?"

Abang: "No." ( firmly)

Mama: ( taken aback)"How’s everything? The food, the people,bla, bla..bla…" ( in motherly mode)

Abang: "Everything’s good. I like it here very much."

Adik took over…..

Adik: "Abang, I'm sure you think of me all the time, arent you??" ( confidently)

Abang: "I guess…but somehow I’ve forgotten how you look like."

Adik: ABANG!!!

I was highly perplexed… how could my only son who is soooo manja does not miss me at all!!!! And... I must admit that I was a tad sad. Abah was amused…. done with laughing at me, he pointed out that I should be relieved that he is adjusting well. Was I not so worried that he would be home-sick, not eating, not talking…. being morose in general? Yeeeesss, but, but….not missing me at all!! That’s too much…. Well, I am one fickle-minded, vain mother, I guess.

Anyway....

At Home.

Mama: "Do you crave for my cooking? ( still vain) Tell me what you wanna eat, I’ll cook it for you…."

Abang: "There are a lot I want to eat, but we are not suppose to follow our nafs, said our ustaz ."

Mama: "Oh… okay….,buuuut, I am offering you , you didnt ask, and you wont be home again until March next year. You are so thin anyway, you need to fatten up, bla, bla,bla…" ( bad mother..)

Abang: "Okay, I want to eat lasagne, any pasta with bolognese sauce, trifle, that fruit custard pudding, that white kueh......(the list goes on and on....)ogo on and on…)

Alas, he was home only for FIVE days…there wasnt enough time to cook and eat everything….

But I tried to cram in as much as time would permit and make it as healthier as possible by using organic ingredients as far as I could…

Abang is crazy over all things pasta....

His all time favourite..........lasagne.

.

The trifle that Adik tried to ‘beautify’ by sprinkling chocolate rice on top…....

Abang finished 2/3 of it by himself…......

On the second day of Eid, we had qurbaan at our place where Abah slaughtered two cows shared with Abah and Mama’s siblings, plus Tok Ayah and Tok Su. After dzuhur, Abang had to leave for school again……

Alhamdulillah…thank you Allah for choosing my son to be there in that madrassah. He didnt miss a single day of tahajjud for the whole time he was home. Insisted on dressing according to sunnah and doing khidmat all the time . Being young and innocent, he seems to absorb every word of his ustadz. He may not understand the depth of everything his doing now, everything is because ustadz says so. And Alhamdulillah, the ustadzs are giving good tarbiyyah while being understanding to the needs of the young lads. Abang now is convinced that he’ll look more handsome only in Sunnah attires. He said he didnt miss me because ustadz said, you need to forget everything in order to gain ilm. And everybody in school is good because we are not to talk about bad things of others lest all our good deeds will be wiped out.

I earnestly pray to Allah that He will grant you the taufeeq to grasp the true meanings of all good things you are doing now and be steadfast therein for the rest of your life. Abang, we all love you soooo much and we are glad that you are so happy over there……..