My Hari Raya

Another month leaving without notice. Here I am wanting to write about my Hari Raya when everybody else is starting to write about the coming month or maybe talking about the coming pilgrimage or even about the next hari raya already. Oh what the heck.

As always (as dull as it may sound!), Hari Raya means lots of food and family gathering. My Hari Raya has become somewhat a routine for the past few year without me realizing it. I cooked the same food - rendang n such, visit the same relatives, exchanging gifts, same raya shopping, even baked the same cookies. Then again, not necessarily no fun. It's just that perhaps I can do something different next year.. something better and non-routine. Perhaps raya somewhere else. Perhaps visit other relatives and visit many more friends. 

The apparent thing that stuck in my mind this raya is that the "old" people I visited seemed to look older, sadly.. which also reminds me, I am getting older too (ouch!)! One uncle who was still walking last year, cheery and can remember very well has started using walking stick, looked weak and barely remember his own age. He even looked at us somewhat in confusion. It was very sad! Another uncle who was bedridden last year is still bedridden and did not recognise even his own children. And one uncle is no longer around as he passed away just before Ramadhan. I also managed to visit my former ustazah whose son is my good friend since primary school. She remembers me very well, she even remembers my sisters and brothers. Sadly she's on wheelchair due to diabetic and some mild stroke.

This year also saw me meeting my half-aunties whom I have not seen for many many years (last I saw them when my dad passed away which was 22 years ago!). I felt good to get to see them though the meeting was a coincidence as we visited the same relative's house.

Back at home, there were a few "open houses" that we went which were mostly neighbors. Obviously I'm not that popular a person to get invited to so many open houses in any weekend. Some people had like 7 invitations in a day. Either my friends didn't host any open houses or I'm simply not invited. It doesn't really matter.. it's just something to ponder!

Oh and I managed to complete the 6 days of Syawal fasting, Alhamdulillah! And hubby too! Something we rarely do. Hopefully we'll do it again next Syawal, insyaAllah.

So perhaps there are some differences after all this raya. Alhamdulillah. Perhaps next year will be a better one. InsyaAllah.