First n foremost, please forgive me, Abang n Adik, for I have broken my promise of one entry per month. Last month was hectic and I didnt have the energy nor the time to sit down and write .
Yesterday marked one full hijri year of your grandfather, my beloved and much missed father, passed away peacefully, looking like he was fast asleep with a smile on his fair,serene face, when he did.
Right after suhoor, my phone was full with messages of the same tone from my siblings over our whatsapp family group. All of us were feeling it all over again. And we encouraged and promised each other to increase our amaal soleh of that day and gift them all to our beloved father. And it was Friday yesterday, which made them more valuable.....May Allah accepts them all, increased them and be the reasons for your grandfather's status to be elevated higher .
And in the evening we went for iftaar with Mak Tok. Alhamdulillah, Mak Tok was okay and happy as there were quite a number of us were there yesterday. Abi, Umi and their grown-up sons who rarely visit, made time for Mak Tok yesterday.
Ramadhan always come bringing a kind of serene joyful feeling to us...but this year, a melancholic feeling also attached itself to it.
Around a week prior to Ramadhan we lost your Abah's uncle and cousin. Tok Din, as he was known to you two, passed away suddenly while vacationing with his whole family in Langkawi. And Makcik Zalina succumbed to cervical cancer exactly on her 46th birthday. Two deaths of close family in a row quite affected us. Let us pray for both of them, and infact, for all our family who have gone to our Creator, and are actually waiting for us to pass through the same door that they had passed....
The last memory of Tok Din to us was when he came to visit Kak Chik in Aprbil. He was his jovial self as usual, enjoying our Kelantanese food, especially the gulai serati ( ate them twice), went shopping, mostly food of course, with Tok Nazi, Kak Long and Kak Cha, reminiscing and enquiring about relatives scattered all over Kelantan.
The thing about him was, he became Abah's uncle by marriage, but he was close to all Tok Nazi's nieces and nephews, as well as grandnieces/nephews . We could see how all K. Cha's n K.Long's small kids behaved toward him like their own grandfather. A big burly Johorean, with a bigger heart to match, Tok Din would never fail to enquire about Abang Habri whenever we visited them at their Taman Tun's house , or he came visiting and Abang was away in madrasah. He always remember all the names of the many grandchildren....there are so many of you that it is quite understandable if the elderlies cant remember the names of all. But not him, he always remember and always interested to know Abang's progress. When he last came, we told him that Abang has khatamed and he was impressed and I vividly remember this wistful look on his face when he mused aloud that his own grandsons should become hafiz too. May Allah makes his wishes to come true...ameen.
As for Makcik Zalina, we pray that all the sufferings that she went through was enough to ensure her meeting with The Maker , a peaceful ones, for indeed she had suffered a lot. We saw how her condition spiraled down, after she refused chemotheraphy, opting for alternative treatment onstead. I still shudder remembering how at one phase her nerve became so sensitive that you cant passed by the bed she was lying without her feeling the force of our walking by and it caused her pain. One light touch on her leg would sent her screaming and she described the sensation as like being on electric shock. The pain was so sudden and acute. She was just a bag of bones, reduced to an unknown face when she died. But, after she was bathed and prepared for the burial, her sweet, kind face returned and she left us with the memory of a kind, hard working,warm and strong-will woman.
There, death upon death should be enough a reminder to all of us that it is always nearby, biding for the time. Let us all be prepared ,for the the wisest ones amongst us are the ones who always remember death.
I thus, end this entry with a loose translation of a hadith...
Ibn Umar (Radiallahu anhu) said, with ten other companions we went to visit Rasulullah Sallallahu alaihi wasallam. One Ansari asked “Who is the smartest and most (karim) among
people”? Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam replied;" The one who remembers death the most and
is actively preparing for akhirah(hereafter). They are the smart
ones, they will gain grace in this dunya and honor in the akhirah”.
