Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

Hari Raya falls today. For the past 3 or 4 days all motorways leading to all directions have been impregnated by heavy traffic ferrying city dwellers back to their home towns and villages to celebrate this joyous day.

Hari Raya has always been taken as the day when everyone takes the juncture as the day to forgive and to seek for forgiveness from each other especially from parents and the old.

It is also a day when children and adults enjoy putting on new dresses and always ready to visit and being visited by relatives and friends from all races.

Children of today are fortunate lots that they are within reach of all they want. In my childhood days Hari Raya was the opportunity to have beef and chicken as we didn’t have the privilege of having them in other occasions.

The less fortunate families like me then, Hari Raya was real festive.

My Hari Raya dresses were a white shirts and blue pants as that can be used as school uniforms when school reopened. Everything was budgeted in such a manner to suit to the affordability of my single mother.

I only owned up 2 pairs of leather shoes when I enrolled myself in ITM campus. I still can feel the good feeling of having the leather shoes for the first time until today.

My mother used to remind me, “Jangan dijadikan kemiskinan sebagai jalan untuk menjadi orang yang tidak bersyukur dan apabila sudah senang nanti jangan pulak dijadikan kesenangan itu untuk menjadi kufur atas segala nikmat yang Tuhan berikan.”

On occurrence like today I can’t avoid shedding tears reminiscing all the words of wisdom from my Mum who left us slightly over a year ago forever.

Now she is not physically with us but I know I am always with her spiritually on every other hours and days especially on Hari Raya like today.

Everything is changed after her death. I don’t celebrate my first day of Syawal in Kuala Pilah anymore as I have to visit her grave in Shah Alam on the first Hari Raya before visiting anybody else.

My children feel the great loss of her too. Each and every one of them says, “If only Uwan is still around we would have enjoyed her rendang and lemang”.

We miss her dearly as there is no one is around to tell us what to do and not to do when the family meets on the first day of the Raya in the kampong.

Now I have 3 grandsons of my own and I now understand and appreciate my mother’s feelings for her 33 grand children and 6 great grandchildren when she left us.

The first thing I want to see in the morning of the Raya is my grand children. I patiently waited for Danny, the eldest and the twins Riezman and Riezwan. Seeing these 3 cuties in baju melayu made me too blissful.

To family and friends, I wish all of you Selamat Hari Raya and my house is always open for them. I don’t have sumptuous delicacies to offer but ‘kita makanlah apa yang ada’ as my mum was fond of saying.

To my mum I must say “Mak, Aspan dan adik-adik serta anak-anak menantu serta cucu-cucu dan cicit-cicit mak tidak akan lupakan Mak.”

"We always remember and pray for you. We love and adore you forever Mum!"

Al-Fatihah.


Thanks…………………………………………………….Aspan Alias.