Melalut-lalut aku

Hari tu, I read an entry in one of my favourite blogs about how she spent her cuti sekolah as a child. The way she described it sounded so idyllic, so nice, involving tree climbing and belut and a hoard of other stuffs I never experienced because none of my grandparents lived in a kampong.

My paternal grandparents lived in Bagan Datok Kecil, Butterworth in a terrace house. My maternal ones lived in a TNB quarters because my grandpa is their engineer. After retirement then they moved to the current house. Sure it is called Kampung Tersusun but a normal kampong it is not.

Well…. anyway when I was a little girl, come cuti sekolah we would always go to Penang. Either my dad would drive us there or my Grandma would come pick us up and together we would go by train. There was nothing much to do in Penang I must admit, except stayed at home watching the telly and just accompany my Tok. Tok Wan passed away when I was 7 and eversince that, Tok had lived alone. Thas was why we were always sent there, teman kan Tok.

My other cousins will come once in awhile but not staying long like we did. Usually arwah Aunty Nun who lived in JB would make an appearance. Bab and Mami Ela at that time were overseas. Since Pak Mat lived in Jitra, Pak Ngah in Alor Setaq and Paksu in Kulim, and considered to live near, always visited but never stayed for more than 1 night.

So it was usually up to my eldest brother and me to amuse ourselves and wait for our relatives to come and take us out. Kalau naik lanca lagi best ! Or wait for UMNO people to come or we ourselves attend UMNO meetings. Bo-ring !!! Dah besar-besar ni barulah perasan laa…dulu depa ni selalu pi rumah Tok or selalu jumpa masa meeting UMNO !

Or acara favourite is when Tok suruh pi kedai. We will take this opportunity to check out the off license (I tak tau apa nama dalam Bahasa Melayu… Tok panggei kedai todi… ha ha) and studied the drunks slumped on the table. Budak-budak punya entertainment.

Anyway, talking about school holiday, I was reminded of one of my train journeys with Tok. Being a reader, I usually would pack some books and because of my age, at that point my books were still filled with pictures.

I remember Tok taking out one of my books during the chug-chugging of the train and flipped through it. Suddenly I heard her sniffling and when I looked, I saw tears streaming from her eyes, ruining her mascara. She was gazing at a page in my book.

I had always been very close to Tok so I asked her, “Awatnya, Tok ?” She answered with, “Tak dak apa-apa…” while wiping her eyes with her tudung. I looked at the book she was holding and saw a huge family posing for a family portrait.

Even though I was young, I understood her tears. I think she was missing my Tok Wan who at that time had passed for maybe 2-3 years. I also suspected that she missed her family, missed being surrounded by her children, and missed being the centre of love. But of course it wasn’t something that I could describe at that time, but I understood anyway.

Dah besar-besar ni I think well ada anak banyak pun no point if all of them live far a way from you.

Anyway, a few years after that incident, my Aunty Nun passed away with her family in a horrific car accident. Tinggal my cousin Jimmy aje who was not with them at that time. It was terrible. My parents left in a hurry to inform my cousin who was staying in Subang Jaya at that time. Nak dijadikan cerita, while they were gone, my cousin came to the house as somebody had beated my parents to it and informed him by phone. By phone !! Kebetulan, I was crying at the balcony and lo behold suddenly there was her son, on a motorcycle.

I remember this so vividly, his face crumpled when he saw me. And I knew then that he came to get confirmation from my parents about his family. And he sort of got it from my stupid wailing at the balcony.

Anyway, he took off his helmet and asked, “Mak dengan abah abang Jimmy dah mati yek ?”

And aku sambung meraung yang tadi terhenti sebab terkejut tengok dia. I managed though to say “Mummy pergi rumah abang Jimmy ! Pergi balik and tunggu Mummy kat situ !” Bodoh kan ? But I was 13 and what do you expect from a 13 year old ? Anyway, that was that and I never got to see my aunt and my uncle and my cousins’ grave until today as they were buried in Batu Pahat.

Anyway, for years we as a family were haunted by the death of 4 members of our family just like that. To tell you the truth, I am still haunted by it. I miss my aunt, and my cousins. And my uncle. Before he died, my uncle Amin called home, wanting to speak to my mother. I answered his call and we spent some time talking. Bodohnya aku, all the while I was thinking it was my arwah Pak Ngah, my favourite uncle for some reason.

At the end of the conversation, uncle Amin said something to the effect of “Why is Pak Ngah your favourite uncle and not me ? I am very hurt to know that….” He was just joking of course but I was frantically trying to tell him that I changed my mind, that he is my favourite one now…

Then he died. With his 2 kids, his menantu and my beloved aunt.

You see, my aunt is special. She has this face that can make people happy. She is a nurse by the way and where she worked, some patients joked that they didn’t come to see the doctor at all, just to have Misi Zainun smile at them and they will be fine.

She is the glue to our family, the one that held the family together. The one that people ran to with their problems. My dad was her favourite brother. She used to reminisce about how she would play teng-teng with my dad on her hips. In fact, I had the impression that she took care of my dad more than my Grandma did ! That was how devoted she was to my dad.

So it was a bit sad when the police called our house to announce her death. My mom picked up the phone and was screaming so loud, we woke up with a start. I remember rushing to her and seeing her screaming on the phone and my dad slumped to the wall. It was chaotic.

My arwah Tok Chu and arwah Opah Cho, who were my mum’s aunt and uncle came over to the house early morning and the 4 of them drove to Johor for the funeral, which happened to be 6 months after my Kak Dedek’s wedding. She died together with the baby in her womb.

Astarghfirullahaladzim… Why am I thinking about all this ? Melalut-lalut lah pulak. What I wanted to say was, when Aunty Nun passed away, I pitied Tok even more and always think about her. She was her only daughter and that must have been a real blow. And although she had lived alone for some years by then, I always pictured her getting lonelier with Aunty Nun gone.

Sigh.