Questa è Enida

If love were a contest, all I would want to win someday is Kitreena’s trust in a man who will be man enough to father her. If love were a contest, the true victory for me is for Kitreena to be protected from a man who treats his wife and the mother of his children the way you do, and for Edrick to not become a man like you.

To me…
Love isn’t a contest. I have let you go to fight your own battle. I am not contesting.

To you…
Love isn’t a contest. You have let yourself be and won a soulmate. But why comparing?

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The silence has caused by this email I received a few hours ago from my husband:

“Enida,

I see you were trying to call – my phone is off or it was poor coverage.

We are in Spain at the moment and having a great time.

Eda, we are finished – I am convinced Ms. X is my soul mate. And I am looking at not now but comparing against what you and I had in our first years AND she is simply the right woman for me… I can see her and me growing old together and her fussing over me in her special way.

But this is NOT a contest, even though you seemed to be communicating that in our last conversation.

I had already made the decision to be with Ms. X or I wouldn’t even be here now.

Her and I have discussed that we will get transfers to ABC in the coming months as our roles come to a close on OPF… and we will live together in ABC until we can get married.

We have also discussed many other things, including the following which need you to make some decisions:

1) On transfer I might be able to convince The Company to move you to XYZ if you want to immigrate once and for all
2) Depending on 1) you might want to make an immediate application for PR visa to XYZ
3) Depending on 1) you might want to put up the house for sale and get the money out of it right away so you can buy a place in XYZ
4) Start considering if Kitreena is having so many problems with being apart from me, Ms. X and I would be happy to take her with us to ABC
5) With Edrick the same applies but I don’t think he can be apart from you – he really needs his mom at this point in his life.

So I won’t be sending my return flight or time – I will get a place to stay in and call you to meet at a neutral place so we have our discussions first and then I will come to collect the kids to have time with them each day I am in KL.

Talk to you soon.”

My heart just could not bleed any more than when Kitreena said, “I believed in Daddy, Mom.”

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“Mintalah. Maka Aku beri. Tapi Aku uji.”
“Ask. You shall be granted. But you shall be tested.”

I did. I was. And I am.

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As you stroll along in life, you tend to stumble upon quotes, sentences and words clustered together that your memory just refuses to shed. Like these ones I picked up along the way when I was much younger. Sixteen, perhaps. (My! So many things happened when I was sixteen, eh!)

“Jarum emas, benang suasa,
dapatkah menjahit hatiku yang luka?”

“Sesungguhnya hidup ini…banyak soalan, kurang jawapan.”

So I try not to ask too many WHY questions these days. And I believe that there will never be an answer to the question, “How could you?” Afterall, it really is another WHY question, not HOW.

This is VEL, Kitreena’s teddy
who’s been with her right from Day One.
Kitreena still can’t sleep without her VEL.
And I still can’t sleep without mine.

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Banyak tanak perkara tanak,
Bertanak nasi biar berpayah;
Banyak anak perkara anak,
Anak siapa tiada berayah?

Banyak suka perkara suka,
Macam suka berinai merah;
Banyak luka perkara luka,
Apa luka tiada berdarah?

~Enida
December 10, 2003
6B Zauliya Street
Qurm Heights
Muscat, Oman

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The word lebar in my earlier post later in the night reminded me of a person whom I kinda crossed paths with long time ago. Her name was Lebar. That’s what she was almost solely known as anyway. The name on her birth certificate was something like Suhaini or something. Physically, she was perfectly the opposite of the definition of lebar. As a matter of width, she was probably one of the skinniest girls ever dove into the lombong in my Grandma’s kampung. Ever.

I never had the chance to speak to her during those years when I could. Neither did I look for the chance. She was just my Grandma’s neighbor’s daughter. The fact that she never said boo to anyone didn’t draw me to get to know her either. I did smile and wave at her once, if that gesture ever counted for anything at all.

One thing I remember clearly is that she was the eldest child of many siblings (so many that they were uncountable) and there was always a baby brother or sister nestling on her slim waist. She basically mothered her siblings!

The last story ever told about Lebar was…she did mother a sibling. Or whatever you call a child whose father is the mother’s father. But Lebar was just a child herself.

Hint of the post: Snakehead Fish at its best.

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Bibik asked me one day if the Japanese cucumbers I had been buying from Cold Storage were imported from Japan. Ignorant me, I didn’t know the answer until I saw the packaged seeds at ACE Hardware, Ikano when I went shopping for her birthday. I got her a watch, again. (She had given the one I gave her in 2004 to Ita, her daughter.) Long story lah pulak.

Anyway, I bought two little packages of Japanese Cucumber seeds, or Kyuri, and came home to surprise her on her birthday. KaCher got her a leather wallet, and Kitreena got her some hair clips. (Nak lah jugak mention kan.) She was surprised, indeed. I gave her the seeds the next day, and thanked her for her question. No sweat! It was just RM1.00 per package.

Today, just a bit over three months after Bibik’s birthday…we are enjoying fresh Kyuri every day. It doesn’t get any more fresh than this! The vine in our backyard has been producing more than what we can consume. We even had to share the cucumbers with neighbors for fear of wasting. Well, if that’s not nice enough…the squirrels have had their shares as well. Begitu meriahnya my backyard…Indonesian Bibik, Japanese cucumbers, and Malaysian squirrels in between.

Arigato gozaimasu, Bibik san!

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