Heh, don't get me wrong, it's not that I do not love my dad but yeah, what's with the celebration of father's day on just one day that we ourselves (or only me) do not actually know from what occasion did the Father's Day came into existence. Like celebrating your mother on your birthday, maybe we should construct our own father's day when err...we were successfully 'made'. Oh forget about that. Let's not limit ourselves from showing love to our daddy merely on Father's Day. Instead, it's an everyday business. You can celebrate your father or mother at any time, don't have to wait for that special day that is being marked by unknown in the calendar which if we see it in our own significant calendar, the date is just an ordinary Sunday, not even our birthday or our dad's birthday. Heh~
But since it is Father's Day, and everybody's been talking about it, I'd love to share my story too. It has been a long time ago since me and my sister stopped celebrating Father's Day and stopped remembering the Sunday as some sort of special. And this was because our father told us about not to celebrate something so blindly like that. He didn't favor the idea of Father's Day. Maybe around nine years ago, in 2002, we stopped this whole Father's Day/Mother's Day thingy. Life went on ordinarily, I was quite a kid at that time so for me, it's just lessen the days of the year to celebrate.
Out of the four childrens, my father loved me the most, and spoiled me the most. I could go on without being scolded even though after he asked me to lend a hand in something and I hesitate and end up forgetting about it and he have to do them all by himself. Whenever I got back from school, there would always be things to eat. He would have either bought them or he had cooked something. Sometimes he haven't, but I don't really care about food when I got back. What's important is doing my business, that is playing games.
In the evening, he would watch TV with all the cartoons Animaniacs, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and some other that I couldn't recall. He would always call me to watch them too, but I always end up not watching them with him because I was too busy being with myself. I always left him calling for me with replies like "Malaslah" or "Baba tengoklah". Heh, now I realized that he just wanted someone to accompany him, especially his beloved daughter. My father is 39 years older than me, so that means that when I turned 11, he was already 50. My father used to say to my mother, that old people didn't usually demand for many things, they just hoped to have a person to talk to, a person to accompany them, they would ask for nothing more.
Sometimes my father ask me to go out to the shops with him, 7Eleven or the mamak place. Because my father is not working anymore, and he is a heavy smoker, I am always suspicious as to what he is going to buy with the little money that he have in hand. I would argue with him at times, saying that he is surely going to buy ciggies with the money and at one time, he became mad and we return back home after being halfway to 7Eleven. I would always regret my manners, and came seeking apologies. He would always forgive me, and saying that I am a good child, I am always sensitive to other people feelings. But then, I'm back at my basic spoiled manners again.
My father is my hero, not because he will give me a lot of money to make my day. In fact, he didn't even have any money, except some amount from his 50 years EPF withdrawal that didn't last long. He showers me with the love I could never ask more. There is one day when I was in Standard 6 (2001), I was punished by the Art teacher for not finishing my craftwork. The punishment is to left the school shoes and socks at school, and having to walk home barefooted. Some of my friends who were also punished tried hard to persuade the teacher to give them back, almost crying. But I was hard-headed. I hate the teacher and the teacher's decision and I went back proudly without my shoes on. Unfortunately, the road's tar were newly lapered, and it was hot as hell.
Father, who waited for me halfway from home, were shocked to see the scene. He insisted on me wearing his slippers and he would walk home barefooted. I hesitated, but end up taking his slippers because I couldn't stand the hotness of the road anymore. I felt bad for making him walk barefooted at that time, but when I thought about it now, I felt very sad for the sacrifice.
When I enter secondary school, I was a a fat kid. And it was always natural for me to hate anybody who seemed to pick on me. I was always hypersensitive to childish issues and blurted a lot of bitching at home. My father, he would always turn my bad stories into jokes, and I came to forget my problem a little without the support to hate from him. Yeah, he had never supported me to hate anybody who picked on me. He would always have his way of changing topics to a more happy one. That method, although is effective for a short period of time, but left me being who I am today. It's not easy to hate people entirely, maybe I think like this because I have matured a little than before, thanks to his joke method of seeing little problems.
During 2002 Hari Raya Aidilfitri, my father open the closet and took a pair of my brother's old Baju Melayu, magenta in color. He wants to wear it for the Friday prayer that day. When he got back, he told us that he didn't realize that there was a hole on the pants. It's a sad situation, and I hold my tears. The next year, my mum bought him a navy Baju Melayu for Hari Raya. He was so happy and he would always wear that during prayer times, together with his Punjabi pants.
And he left wearing that baju too. In 23rd September 2004, two months before my 14th birthday, 10 days before I sit for PMR, on the night of the Thursday, father passed away during Isya' prayers. That day, we merely had any interactions, because after Maghrib he had gone and talked with our neighbour next door for about 2 hours before coming in the house, gave some fried chicken to Combi (the naughty cat), drank a glass of water and went upstairs to perform Isya' prayer. He didn't came down after an hour, it's quite unusual because he always took 20 minutes only each prayer. I went upstairs to the room, when I opened it, I was afraid but I thought he fell asleep until I saw his palm. It was white, like there were no blood being circulated. One hand was on his forehead, his eyes were half opened. It might be a heart-attack, because he indeed have a heart problem.
I don't know what to do. It happened all of a sudden. There were hardly any warning. I cried, I cried a lot when thinking that I had took for granted all the times that I have with him. I took for granted all the advices from facilitators that came to our school, reminding us to seek restu, apologies for our sins towards our parents, and hug them tight before PMR. I thought that I'm going to do all that a day before the first paper in 4th October. I took for granted that he'll always be with me. I took for granted his existence and love. I lost appetite for some days, and skipped school for a few days. I can't believe that I could no longer hear him answer each time I called "Baba".
Baba, if he is still around, he's already 60 years old because I'll turn 21 this year. He left me too soon, but when I think again, had he not left me at that time, I would never learn to appreciate the people who loved me, I would never learn to appreciate my family, I would never learn to appreciate time and all the chances that I had. Never had I passed a single takbir raya without remembering him, never had I passed a single Father's Day celebration hype without thinking about him. Never had I appreciate my looks that resembles so much of his genes without thanking Allah for making him my father :)
And now that he is in God's hands. I can heave sighs of relief, he would never get hurt by worldly matters anymore.
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