Skip to main content

Another phase in life.... hers and mine...


I have been in a melancholy mood. I have been unmotivated, wishing that I don't have to go to work.

Although, I try to be the type of parent that is practical and always encouraged my children to be independent and self-sufficient, I guess I've always wanted to be there for them.

Now, there is this realization that my eldest daughter, doesn't need me anymore.  Sending her to college last Sunday, it suddenly occurred to me that she will, from now on, be spending more time away from us. This is what has put me in a pensive mood. And, in a couple of years, my eldest son will leave us and then my other daughter, then finally, my youngest son.

I look back at the last 17 years of raising her, I wish I had been a better parent. I wish I was had shown more patience and compassion rather than anger and edginess. I wish I had shown more composure than agitation. Maybe, that is why I find it hard to let go. I have this feeling that I haven't done enough, that I must hang on to her to make right all those wrongs that I have shown her and her siblings. The wrongs that I can only hope will not have an impression on them.

But, this feeling of remorse and regret will be lost on them, as it was lost on me when I was growing up and fail to understand why my parents treated me like a child when I thought I was a man. There is no way to teach a child about parenthood, except by being parents. Maybe the techniques of raising a child can be read from books, but the pride that you feel when you see them happy and the sadness that strangles your heart when you see them disappointed, can never be put into words.

I will probably get used to this "empty-nest" syndrome. I will have to. Because, I predict by the end of 2013, only my youngest son will still be with us. My eldest son will have gone off to college and my second daughter seems intent to leave her present school and go to a boarding school.

Rummaging through my wallet today, I found baby pictures of all my children and tears welled in my eyes. I wish I was a better father, I wish I had given them more of my time. One part of me wants them to stay babies, and another part is so proud of what they've become.

I do know one thing.... I want to be with them forever...

Comments

  1. S. S. ZakariaJune 1, 2011 at 1:57 PM

    Excellent piece of write up...I feel that I am myself related to it......KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK BRO!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJuly 12, 2011 at 7:48 PM

    Uncle, touching!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pak Mat Beca

I started school in 1971. I went to Sekolah Ismail (Dua), as far as I am concerned the only primary school in the whole universe and every kid must go there or the government will put their parents away forever. The "Dua" or Two (2), does not mean there were two Sekolah Ismails. There was only one, except that there were two sessions, morning and afternoon. When I started in standard one, I was in the morning session. Apparently, somehow, the two Ismails alternate, and I really can't recall ever having to go to school in the afternoon. Every morning, my cousin, the late Hashimah Hashim (Allah bless her soul), and I would wait for Pak Mat to pick us up in his beca, his trishaw. And, until I changed school in 1976 (that's another story to tell), Pak Mat and his beca would take me to school every school day. I know of no other way to go to school and I did not really appreciate the distance that Pak Mat had to cycle to pick us up and send us to our respective s...
Post a Comment
Read more

For the Love of God

Someone told me a joke about a man who had just bought a car. It was his first car and, not wanting to have even a scratch on it, he took it to a hindu temple, a buddhist temple, a church and a mosque. At the hindu temple, the hindu priest chanted mantras over the car and tied a red string around the car's right wing mirror. The buddhist monk sprinkled the car with water after chanting traditional mantras and then a white string was tied to the left wing mirror. The christian priest blessed the car with holy water and gave the driver a cross to hang from the rear view mirror. At the mosque, the imam was astounded since nobody ever asked to bless a car before. So after a recitation of selected verses from the Qur'an, he took a hacksaw and promptly cut the tip off the car's exhaust pipe..... to circumcise it. When I first heard this story, I thought the new car owner was an atheist, albeit a superstitious one. This man, I had deduced, did not really believe in the existence o...
Post a Comment
Read more

The road to hell is paved with good intents....

Once there was a man who all his life have nothing but good intentions. But, everybody in his village said that he was the devil. He robbed and maimed. He killed and destroyed. When he was caught and brought to justice, his defense was that he was only trying to feed his family. When he was growing up, he was not good at school. The teachers all say he was hopeless, his father thought he was an embarrassment, his siblings thought he was a burden, society keep reminding him that the world would be a better place if he wasn't in it. Only his mother saw him differently. Only his mother loved him because he was her son.... and for no other reason. And later, he met the woman of his dreams and married her and had beautiful children and he vowed that they will never ever go through life as he did. He swore on his life, that he will do anything to ensure his children go the best schools, eat the best foods, wear the best clothes, grow up to have the best jobs, to be whatever they as...
Post a Comment
Read more