Being together

Coming back from school in the evening, I will cook for my family and especially for my husband who just came back from Paris after a three month stay for a job assignment. I want to make up for the time when I'm not around him in Paris and he has to eat fried rice or instant noodle almost everyday. I feel that I have failed to perform my duty to serve him as a wife. My youngest son and I managed to visit him for eight days there and was elated when he went back to our apartment every afternoon to have lunch prepared by me. Everyone would say I went there to visit Paris but that was not my intention. I went there to stay with him and perform my duty as a wife even for a short stay. Paris was a bonus. I would do the same even if he was in Vietnam.

Europeans women would find Asian women as outdated for 'humbling' themselves to their men. I have a different view. My source of happiness is to be with my family. When I come home from school, I am greeted by my roses, orchids, green plants, rabbits, chickens, cat. But they are just the accessories. What make my house my home are my husband and kids. It's the people that make up a home, a family. We would be happy anywhere as long as we are together. From a humble abode that hardly can be called a house at the beginning of our marriage to the present spacious house. We have weathered bad times. We have had good times. But through it all we are always happy for we are always together. Now the birds are leaving the nest. My kids are leaving home for college or university almost every year. But they always stay in touch with us. Especially when they are sick. That's when they miss their mom the most. Now being together is not necessarily being together physically. We are always in each other's heart. That's what matters. Not the materials.

May Allah bless us all.