My Personal Visit

When I go off from this world, I do not wish my loved ones to carry a ritual to visit my grave every so often. As far as I understand, the dead lives in a totally different world beyond our comprehension of which it may be separated by thousands of millions of light years apart and yet it is inexplicably as close as a heartbeat away.

Be as it may, even if my grave goes unmarked, I would still be just as close without the symbolism comes into the picture. Need not for my loved ones to dirty their feet with the cemetery soils; I would only then yearning for the Al-Fatihah to be articulated sparked by their sincere hearts, anytime, anywhere. That’s all matters!

Though my understanding is as such, I personally take it differently to honor my old folks apart from having recited a verse or two of surah at my disposal every now and then. I will sure make a point to visit their graves every time I set foot in kampung. I was at the cemetary on that Sunday evening, two days before Hari Raya, after battling through heavy traffics back to my hometown for 12 long hours, and my back was killing me. To make it personal, I went to the cemetery without anyone’s knowledge. My wife will only know after reading this.

The cemetery was kind of isolated, over at the corner of the kampung. So quiet, while walking; you could hear clearly your feet brushed with the grass, every snap of the stick stepped onto and the crispy sound of the dead leaves plundered into. It was rather strange but nice when you could hardly hear anything except the ever pleasant wheezing cadence of the wind blow and the chirping of birds coupled with minute rattling & clattering sounds of bugs and insects.

I felt like my grandpa & grandma was waiting for my arrival and I felt like an obvious bulge if not lump in my throat upon seeing their burial grounds positioned next to each other. The gust of feeling in me was so personal. At the very instance, my eyes watered. Mind you, they were to me just like father & mother to most people because they took care of me ever since I was still a baby of merely a year old. I was in the state of denial for so long when I was a kid before I could accept the fact that they were not my parents but my grandparents. The irony is, deep down in my heart, until this day, they were parents to me and still are.

I settled myself in the grass, presented them with Al-Fatihah & Qul-Huallah before I proceed with Ratib, Yassin & Do’a. You know what? Throughout the rendezvous (as I may call), at times I choked when I felt like they were so close to me as if they were thanking me for the visit and I felt like some kind of two-way communications, telling them what’s hidden in my heart, thanking them for their struggle to raise me up and even apologizing for the shortcomings on my side where they were still alive and so forth. Never mind on the shortfalls over me when I was a small boy because God just want me to see the hikmah hidden behind it.

I couldn’t help it but cried. I sat there and I really cried. Since I was all alone, I let go the whole feelings & emotions. It took me long minutes clearing up my tears in the car before headed back home for buka puasa.

GAB: There was another round of visit on Hari Raya when I brought the whole family to the graveyard.