Everyone is fighting a hard battle

He sounded a bit bitter when he told me that one of his sisters might not be back to attend an important family function.

“Nak seribu daya, tak nak seribu dalih. If money is the real reason, I won’t mind letting her use my own money first. But no, she asked for this function to be postponed as though everyone must cater to her needs.”

“Well, money might not be an issue to you, but she might look at things differently…”

“I know she doesn’t want to attend the function, but I can’t buy her lame excuses. At least my brother who’s teaching in Terengganu gave me a valid reason for not being able to make it because the function is held on a Sunday and that’s a working day in Sunday and he can’t afford taking too many days off. She though, is not living that far and it won’t cost that much for her to return and this is a really important family function, yet she told me she won’t be able to attend it until after she got her salary. What kind of excuse is that?”

He sounded really, really frustrated. He came back all the way from abroad to attend a similar gathering in honour of this particular sister a few years back and found it difficult to accept that she won’t be attending this function in his honour due to ‘money problem’.

On the other hand, I had a feeling that it might just went deeper than ‘money problem’. This particular sister had introduced him to a girl in her neighbourhood. He befriended the girl, and even agreed when his family asked him to ask for her hand in marriage. But just before they became formally engaged, he had a change of heart and stopped his mother from sending the engagement ring to the girl’s house. That incident of course really, really hurt the sister’s feeling.

Quietly, I remarked, “Look, I know how important this function is to you. I know you would be happy to have all your siblings present during the function. But you may want to consider that there might be some bitterness on your sister’s part after what you did. Yes, I do know that you feel strongly that the girl was not the one for you and you have more right to decide who you want to be with. But imagine how embarrassed she must be when she was the one who introduced the two of you in the first place. She must had said a lot of nice things about you to that girl – but in the end, after what took place, she must have felt mortified by your decision.”

He kept quiet for a while, then he changed the topic.

He has his own battle to fight. So does his sister.

I supposed Plato made a valid point when he reminded us to “be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

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On another note, I’ll be away – attending a team building course in Pulau Redang – until Sunday. Am very excited for this is the first time I’ll be going to a nice island in the East Coast. Can’t wait to try out snorkelling!!! And we’ll be doing some jungle tracking too… Bestnye… bestnye…