Satu Hari Di Hari Raya (Part 2): Knowing Oneself

…I am now a student in a boarding school… 13 years old.

I know it very well; the old folks are not wealthy persons. It is to me already gratifying when they are willing to raise me up when I was little regardless of me having to live in a pool of tears. Thankful for not letting me go hungry. Always feel something is missing in my life for not having a father and a mother to even witness me having successfully written my very first letters of ABC. May be the mother could but she had to be away struggling for her survival.

I thank the old folks a zillion. Without them perhaps I won’t be able to tell how beautiful the sun is when it sets in. And how nice the feeling is when seeing those beautiful clouds in the sky that generously painted in the background of that lush greenery of the rice field from where our house is located.

God has been very kind to make me excel in my studies for me to clinch a place in the boarding school. Unlike other kids, they are having hard time to leave their families behind for hostel life but me, on the other hand jumped with joy. Not so much because of being privileged as a "smart" student but the feeling of being away from home.

Hari Raya is around the corner. I don’t want them scratching their heads to find money to buy me clothing for the Hari Raya celebration. I even gave them the idea that I have all the balance from my scholarship that I can buy on my own. As a matter of fact, the scholarship is deducted for paying my subsistence on living at the hostel and not much left for my pocket money. Practically almost nothing! Anyway, since I do not know when I would get the money again, I know how to save. I still have some money left. It was given to me when people well-wished me the day before I made my first trip to school.

I bought myself a collared T-Shirt and long pants on my way back home for the holidays. They are just merely sufficient to be called clothes; far away from the meaning of luxury, and not even close to my own preference. I just had so much money in hand. I use my school’s official Baju Melayu for the Morning Prayer. It is not too obvious when it is worn without samping and to go with kain pelikat. I do not bother much about the shoes; I do have sport shoes that I have been using for months in school’s compulsory sporting event.

I am now at the masjid next to the rice field. My eyes are almost staring at point blank seeing the dance of the rice crops in rhythm with Hari Raya morning breeze. Without precedence, all the memories of my childhood not long ago come rushing in my head, one frame after another. So vivid! I can even see myself in a school uniform walking on the bank of the rice field going to school whilst the dew on the tips of the grass wet my shoes. I can see myself so happy herding cows that belong to my old folks. I can even see a small boy of me sit on the bank alone… nowhere to turn to, sobbing, weeping... feeling so down and yet he has to keep it to himself…

The sound of the takbir this morning brings me a feeling of loneliness right in the middle of the crowd… feeling like having no one in this world. I actually am... No one has ever listened to what's hidden in my heart.

I hide my face away from people not letting them see tears running down my cheeks.

Those are the tears of gratefulness & happiness for having successfully manage things on my own.

Or may be there's a little something that hit my soft spot that I simply cannot put up with.