AUG 8 — Sometimes, Ramadan and Raya are simply dull.
It’s not that they aren’t exciting. They are. The fasting month is always special and so is Raya. But over time it gets routine — maybe it’s part of growing up, eh?
Every year we start fasting (determined to lose some weight), then after a few token days of self-restraint we gorge (what with the bazaars, oh evil conspiracy they are). Then we start measuring the sidewalks of Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman for hours on end (strangely they’re always the same size). More than once (and still the same size, strangely).
And for us from Borneo stuck on this side of Malaysia for studies or work, there is always that uplifting (but routine) going-home-for-Raya trip to the airport too. Some variations from year to year but mostly it is the same Ramadan-Raya script, over and over.
But this Ramadan just past was somewhat different for me.
For the first time since I began spending most of my fasting months on this side of the South China Sea, my mother came to spend a few weeks of the fasting month with us; my wife and son and me.
That means my son got to spend his first Ramadan with his grandmother.
It was a welcome change. Or rather, a welcome taste of how things used to be — fasting with family.
Like in the good old days before the realities of higher studies and my chosen career path led me away from Kuching. Before I became another one of those people who are never truly at home in the city, always mindful of the next flight away.
Then a couple of weeks ago, my mother mused that if my wife and I were to spend many more years living away from our hometown, maybe my son wouldn’t remember her that much when he’s all grown up. I dismissed that talk, but truth be told it touched a deep, hidden nerve.
It was one of those moments that you somehow feel would haunt you in years to come.
Because I don’t remember my maternal grandfather at all. And I’ve always wished I did.
Previously I wrote how my brother and I, along with our father, would visit my paternal grandfather’s grave behind the Kuching district mosque every year after Raya prayers. It’s our first stop, always. One of those little things that define our Raya.
It’s how we remember our father’s father, the man my brother and I never knew. He passed away when my father was in his late teens and never saw any of his children wed. His grave is where we go to see him, in a way.
But I can’t say the same for my mother’s late father. Every year, as we walk away from the grave, my mind inevitably wanders back to my mother’s hometown in Limbang. It was where my parents met, wed, and where I was born.
It is also where my maternal grandfather, who passed away before I was old enough to have real memories of him, lies.
Unlike my other grandfather, he was still alive when my parents married. There are pictures of us together, the slim, hardened grandfather with his toddler grandson. I did not take after his side of the family much — my mother’s brothers inherited his slender build, but I followed my father in terms of physique. From the old photos, the eldest uncle from my mother’s side resembles him greatly.
However, I was told that I was quite attached to him as a baby — apparently I would cry whenever he left the room and out of my sight.
I’m sure there are many anecdotes of how he was like as a person. With nine children, of whom my mother was eldest, there would be no shortage of people willing to share family trivia like that with us kids. Like how on his deathbed he asked for his rifle to be passed down to his youngest son, nine years old at the time.
But I never asked. And so I never even knew of him. My grandfather was a stranger who loved me.
When I was a few years old, we moved from Limbang to Kuching, my father’s hometown which I would come to think of my own hometown. And when I was about five, he passed away. I do not even recall hearing of his passing then.
So as we grew up, my siblings and I, it was just a fact of life that he was gone. As a kid I never really asked about him — death is an awkward subject for children to bring up and I never knew how to do it. And so I kept wondering.
Who was this man whom my mother calls father?
The simple solution, it would seem, is to ask. But part of me did not want to ask, because those are other people’s memories. Not mine.
I was once in his arms, my late grandfather, but sadly I don’t remember anything. And because he was alive at some point in my life, I wanted my own memories of him. Impossible as that is, I still do.
It was only in the past few years that I even found out how exactly he passed away. An accident with pesticides, from what I gathered. (I was told about it and did not even ask, in fact.) And there would be many more things I would never know of him.
It’s funny to me how both my late grandfathers evoke so much sadness in me on Raya mornings. Yet it’s a different kind of sadness for each. While one passed away years before I was born, the other once held me in his arms. And while I know where my paternal grandfather’s grave is, I can’t say the same of my other grandfather.
His grave is accessible only by boat as he lived in a village with no road access and only the river as its highway. The last time I was there was with a number of his children and grandchildren, years ago. I can’t drive a speedboat and I would get lost trekking in the surrounding jungle, so I can only get there again someday if someone takes me.
When I’m next in Limbang, that is. With work commitments and family life, going home to Kuching is difficult enough already. Another of the little things in the fine print when your parents come from places very far apart from each other — always great family visits to one side of the family but rare opportunities to do so.
So every time I visit my other grandfather’s grave in Kuching on the first day of Raya, I feel a slight wistfulness for my other grandfather. Because here’s one grandson who doesn’t remember who he was. Here’s one grandson who won’t be able to visit his grave that morning.
Because unlike this grave in front of me that I can visit every time I’m in Kuching, I have no clear idea when I’ll be able to visit his grave again.
And on Raya mornings, I wish I could be there even just for a little while.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
