liyana,

I needed to find a place of comfort. A quiet village where I used to grow up. The only place I stayed away from since my mother’s death. And somehow today I felt like travelling back in time where happy thoughts used to reside.

It was afternoon.

My aunt, who bears so much resemblance to my late mother, was in the kitchen cleaning up the dishes. The kampung house was empty, my uncle has already left for prayer at the mosque. My cousins didn't come home that weekend.

I told my aunt about you. I told her precisely, ‘mak lang. liyana sudah tiada lagi.’

She looked at me quietly for few seconds.

Then she looked away continuing her chores. I waited. For a verdict, for a judgement, I did not know.

My aunt once said that she rarely saw me cried. Even when I was a kid, I would go hiding on my own and she would found me later returned with my chin held high but my eyes red from crying. She said I never let anyone know when it hurts. I have always put on a fight. Relentlessly.

As usual on that day she didn't speak very much. I was not sure whether she wouldn’t know the right things to say to comfort me or simply because she deduced that my mental faculty already knows all the answers that I needed to hear.

But she said one thing though. She told me to have sabr.

Everything in this dunya is temporary. Everything is not meant to last.

So have sabr.

And I remembered how you used to tell me that you saw in me patience. 

For God sake, liyana, I do hope you were right.

chairil