Missing

My son turned a month old yesterday. I still haven’t get to see his latest photo. Hubby, who was back home for the weekend told me that he could not find the cable to upload the new photos on the PC, so he sent me some old photos instead, taken a few days after I left KL.

I asked him when he would install the webcam as promised. Since it took ages for my brother to do it, I’d already asked my husband beforehand to buy the webcam and get it installed at my uncle’s place in Putrajaya. He told me instead that he did not manage to do it because it was already late when he arrived at Putrajaya the day before and when I called him, he was already on his way back to Seremban, from where he would be returning to Terengganu.

Perhaps if he had stopped at that, I would still be rational about it. But he went on to add, “Huzaifah hasn’t change that much, you know…”

“Yeah right, Mak told me that he had put on 1.3. kg – that’s a third of his weight at birth. His hair is growing. And Mak Tam told me that he’s getting chubbier. Yeah, right, it’s easy for you to say that he hasn’t change that much. You get to see him every other week. I haven’t seen him at all since I left. And babies grow so fast. So, don’t tell me that he hasn’t change that much. You can’t imagine what it’s like for me trying to imagine how our son looks like now. You can’t imagine how saddening to learn that he wants Mak Tam’s towel as his safety blanket rather than the batik sarong I left. You can’t imagine how difficult for me seeing other mothers holding and cuddling their babies and I don’t even know what my own child look like currently...” and although I’m not normally a hypersensitive person, I broke down there and then.

It’s not like I’m normally a demanding person – but it has already been 3 long weeks. My brother promised to get it installed as soon as possible when he sent me off at the airport – but I’m yet to see it. Now, hubby has already promised me that he would get the webcam, but he’s not sure when he will be back again because it’s Ramadhan after all and like most people, he doesn’t like traveling during Ramadhan. He’s thinking of returning home for Eid, but I doubt I can wait that long before seeing baby again.

Maybe I should just stop making calls to him until he get the webcam installed, just so he could have a taste of what it’s like missing someone so much…

#####

Yesterday was the birthday of a friend, mentor and favourite writer, Hizairi Othman. He’d gone missing for over 4 years now, since March 2001. I wonder how his mother is coping. It must be terrible for her – deep in her heart, she believes that he’s still alive, yet she’s unsure of the truth. His case is still filed under Unsolved Cases in Kajang’s Police Headquarters. The police used to invite a member of the family to identify unidentified bodies found. The family has tried all possible methods and used all their connections to try to find and locate him to no avail. They could only pray for his safety and safe return if he’s still alive. And they also pray that if he’s no longer alive, at least let them find the body so that a proper funeral could be held.

I haven’t seen my son for 3 weeks and it feels like ages.
I can’t imagine what it must be like for Hizairi’s mother, siblings or his fiancée.
My thoughts and prayers are with them always.