At the hospital

Sitting quietly beside Aiman's hospital bed, I watched his serene sleeping face. Opposite his bed is my daughter's bed. Rarely does a mother took two kids at once to the ward for operation. Both of them have tonsilities - a throat problem. Their tonsil will be removed tomorrow.

Initially it seemed like just a simple minor operation to me until I saw my 7 years oleh Aiman cried when the doctor tried to insert operation needle into his hand. The first try on the left hand was unsuccessful. Then the doctor tried with the right hand. Can you imagine how does a mother feel seeing the doctor moving the needle inside my son's hand from left to right trying to find the blood vessel? It must have cut into his flesh. As for my daughter, only the forth try was successful leaving three unused needle hole. But since she's 17 years old, it doesn't bother her much. I have to bear with everything because I know they will be much better after the operation, InsyaAllah. They both have breathing difficulty. The often inflame tonsils blocked their nostrils, making it difficult for the air to reach their lungs.

May Allah bless my kids with good health.

May Allah bless us all.

The effects of technology

The facebook group was just recently created about two weeks ago. It is a platform for the students of my school who are interested to increase their Islamic knowledge to share reminders from the Holy Qur'an and Hadith. The effect is like a whirlwind. It reached its 100 members yesterday and is fast growing. The kids put up a lot of reminders.

I had some very tough years before trying to build pious students group - trying to follow the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him (p.b.u.h), in educating his Companions. Some sitting will see a big number of attendance but most of the time only a small core group members will attend. But that doesn't bother me much since I know Allah will not ask me how much I have achieved but rather how much I have tried. What I can achieve is in the hand of Allah. I am just a vehicle. It is Allah that moves people to change. But I have never imagine in my life with the use of technology (i.e. facebook) things can spur up like this.

Accidentally I also bought an iPad two weeks ago. I bought Qur'an Explorer apps. Then I bought apps for Qur'an Tafseer. Then I discovered iBooks for all kinds of Islamic books. This mean beside being my personal reading, I can now take a single device to help me in each sitting with the kids.

May Allah help me in my conquest to seek His pleasure.

Passing through life

While waiting for my turn to see the doctor, I talked to a lady sitting beside me. She came with a daughter. Her husband has died a few years ago and she supported her family with doing small business. Her eldest son died in a car accident, the second one studying in a college and her daughter that she brought along that day is a disabled lady. She told me how she has to work hard to support her college son and her disabled daughter. Every time her college son goes back to college she will equipped him with dried mee, milo drink and biscuits for breakfast before going to class. She lamented about her life. That's when I felt I needed to clear the air for her. I told her that thank to Allah, her daughter is a disabled person. If she is born smart, then she would be studying somewhere now and leaving her alone at home.

Sometimes we didn't see the blessing that Allah has bestowed upon us because we are being negative minded. We lead our life grumbling about a lot of things and thus we are missing a lot of fun. All my life I have been trying to be a positive person and I am still struggling with it. Trying to channel my energy to doing something that I can do to improve the situation, instead of complaining about things that I can't change. To focus on other people's strength instead on highlighting their weaknesses. To forgive others sincerely instead of letting the anger burn me from inside. To improve the quality of my work instead of complaining on how much I have to do. To do the household chores with a lot of love even when my kids are not helping me. Ya Allah, thank you for all the blessing You bestow upon me.

May Allah bless us all.

lament - expression of regret or disappointment; a complaint : there were constant laments about the conditions of employment.

Parenting

Time seem to have fly so fast. We sent our first child to his first formal school in 1997. He was seven years old then. Today, the first day of 2012, I am sewing Aiman's school uniform to shorten its length. Seven years old this year, he will start his first formal school next wednesday. A 15 years gap from our first child. It's like the second phase of our parenting life. Three of my kids are already in various universities. My forth child will start her last year of schooling with Aiman.

Some people measure the success of parenting with how good the kids are in their academic life. To us that is the secondary part. The first and foremost criteria of parenting success to us is how good a muslim they are. Are they setting good examples to their friends without having to preach, for actions speak louder than words. Are they performing their prayer in congregation instead of praying alone? Do they say their prayer and sit down to eat? Are they reading the Holy Qur'an everyday?..............

From time to time we have to remind them again the same things that we always reminded them of in the past. For we human always err (make mistakes) and we always forget. Dr Fadhilah Kamsah, a well known motivator, said we have to remind our kids at least 200 times before they can remember. And in most cases we haven't reach that 200 time limit yet. So we will always be patient and keep on reminding. May Allah ease our job as parents. We will be asked by Allah in judgement day wether we have done our best as parents.

Ya Allah. When we pass away let our children remember to pray for us everyday. Amin.

May Allah bless us all.

Extended family gathering

It was a gathering foe the descendants of Lebai Salleh and Rokiah. The oldest living descendants were their grandchildren, the offsprings of their seven children. That means there are about 400 members and almost three hundred members attended from all over Malaysia. We wore seven different colors according to which one of the seven children of Lebai Salleh and Rokiah we come from. So there were many familiar faces and unfamiliar faces in one compound. The event was held in the compound of two of the grandchildren who are neighbors.

We cooked and had some fun activities together. The most touching part was when my father read out the history of the family. Lebai Salleh and his four siblings migrated for Siam or Thailand now due to the harsh treatment Muslim received from the Siam government. Life was unbearably difficult there. All five of them chose different parts of Kedah to settle down, start planting rice and taught Qur'an to their young neighbors.

It was a time to rekindled with long lost relatives. It was a time to get to know unknown relatives. We even set up a group in FaceBook. The event left a fond memory to me. Plans are made to repeat such gathering once a year. May Allah bless those involved in the planning of the event.

May Allah bless us all.

Congratulations

PMR's result went out last Thursday. As the form teacher of 3KAA, I looked forward to their result. I have put a lot of time and effort to help all of them to achieve their best. So when six of them got 9 straight As, I praise Allah for this blessing. The others were excellent too.

There's quite a lot of surprises too. At the middle of the year they were still quite weak in a lot of subjects. Their trial results were not as good as we wish for. Maybe this was what make them struggle after that. While doing their exercises everyone was so quiet that you can hear the sound of a pencil dropping to the floor. Even Dila was soundless to the surprise of everyone. Usually she always has something to say. And when she doesn't agree with anything she will make sure everyone knows. But after the trial exam she was as quiet as the peaceful lake. This allowed everyone to focus on their work.

Team work was obvious there. I paired the good students with the weaker ones so that they can help each other. The good students will remember better when they teach their friends. The weaker ones can understand reasons from their peers better than the teacher's explanation for they speak the 'same' language.

I was bombarded in the curriculum meeting just after the trial exam because four students from my class failed Maths, my subject. My excuse was quickly brushed aside. But the kids final result in the PMR exam was excellent and exemplary. Only four didn't get A for maths. Two of them got B and another two got C. The rest scored A. Allah has been kind to me. Alhamdulillah, praise be to Allah. I got a lot of thank you from my students. My response is, "This is your success. As your teacher, I'm happy for you".

May Allah bless us all.

Thank you mom and dad

It was the first time my little Aiman ride a train that has bunk beds. He was pretty excited last night waiting for the train. Going back to our home town with his older brother and sister, he had planned a week ahead of what he wanted to do there. Fishing is on top of his list of course. Fishing can be done from the window of my mom's kitchen for there is a stream at the back of the house full of talapia fish. There are so many fish that you can choose to fish just the big size ones. Incredible! And all of the fish are so hungry, catching them will be just a matter of minutes.

I'm happy to send my kids to my parents' place. My parents will be busy filling their time with the laughter of their grandchildren and my kids will be happy being pampered by their granny. It will be memorable time for both party. This is a gift of love for my parents that have raised me up to be the person I am now. Thank you mom and dad for everything. Nothing can repay your hardship raising us up. I truly hope all of you will enjoy yourselves tremendously together there. I will come home soon to pick up the kids.

May Allah bless us all.