If there's any lesson to be learned...

Both recent entries by MakNenek and Kit had made me think long and deep about being a mother. MakNenek's words, “The truth is, our children, reflects us. That truth hurts. It means that my history has an effect on them,” resounded long after I finished reading it.

It won’t take a genius to figure how I feel about Mak, but it’s a different story altogether when it comes to my biological mother. I respect her. I feel thankful to her for bearing me in her womb for 40 weeks and bringing me to this world. But if anyone ask me if I love her as a mother, I doubt I can say ‘yes’ sincerely. She’s the anti-model of a mother I want to be for my own children.

It has always been difficult to explain to others why I became rather unfeeling towards the woman who gave birth to me. Some pre-warned me that I would feel differently after I gave birth to a child myself, but no, giving birth to Huzaifah has not change how I feel towards my biological mother. Long long ago, as I was about to leave my high school, I got lots of friends telling me in person or just leaving notes in my autograph, to love my mother, because however bad she was, she’s still the mother who gave birth to me and that "syurga di bawah telapak kaki ibu". It was clear to them that I never look forward to her annual visits. In fact, she stopped visiting when I was 16, after she got pissed with something I said and cursed me to go to hell along with my father.

We did not contact each other until I returned from UK in 1998. Since then, I have made it a habit to visit her at least once a year, normally to stay for 3 or 4 days. She would normally ask me to drive her around Kedah/Perlis, visiting some relatives or family friends whenever I visit her. Our relationship is now cordial, as against warm. It used to be tinged with bitterness when I was younger, but there’s none of that now. I guess some things just fade with time.

Why the bitterness?
I guess she felt bitter because I chose Ayah over her during the fight for custody. So did my younger brother. Ayah even won custody for my youngest brother who was less than three years old. when they were divorced for the final time.

For most part of my childhood, I was raised up by my paternal grandparents. First out of necessity because my parents found it difficult for my mother to cope with both a baby and her second pregnancy; later because they were divorced and Ayah got me while my brother stayed with our mother. They remarried after that, mostly because Ayah was deeply concerned about my younger brother’s well being, and he wanted me to have a mother just like other kids. Still, Tok Ayah and Tok insisted on me staying with them even after my parents remarried. For all I can remember, I only stayed full time with my mother when I was six and eight – prior to that it was only for short stays every now and then.

I remember my eight year quite clearly though – and that was probably the worst year of my childhood.

I remember coming back home from school to an empty house with no lunch prepared for us, because our helper was not afraid to get away whenever she felt like it since she was not well supervised by my mother. Often we had to go to Nyah’s place for lunch, which luckily was not that far from our house back then.

I remember Ayah sacking the irresponsible maid and he asked my mother, a government servant, to be back home by the evening to look after the children herself. So we went to her office right after school, waited there until she finished working. She then arranged for us to be tutored by our Indian neighbour after school, so that she could use her evenings for politically-related activities.

I remember how we often had to stay back at the neighbour’s house (with pet dogs that kind of scared me) longer than necessary, sometimes till late at night. On the rare evenings we got to return home early, we didn’t get to see our mother much because she would hit the sack, telling us that she was very tired. No, she never cooked. We ate out or bought take-outs – but often it was Ayah who returned later (because he was a self-entrepreneur, working in Butterworth) who ensured that we were well fed before we went to bed.

I remember how often we, the kids, became the cause of their quarrels, and they fought so fiercely that even until today, I could still remember the sound of their fights, their raised voices shouting at each other in the middle of the night and the sound of Ayah’s sharp slaps reaching her face. I remember crying myself to sleep, wishing so badly that I could be back with my grandparents in Kulim away from all the madness.

I remember how one day Ayah took my brothers and I out for a day out in Penang only to come back to a dark, cold house. She left us, taking with her most of the furniture and all her clothes. Ayah went to her close friend – another political activist – and forced him to spill out where my mother was. That very night, Ayah drove all over Sungai Petani until we finally located her. He divorced her for the third and final time right in front of my very eyes while my two younger brothers were asleep in the back seat of Ayah’s car.

I was eight, still young, but old enough to appreciate the more responsible and loving parent, although Ayah had always been rather garang too. Because I was over seven years old, when it came to custody I had the right to choose and it was easy for me to make up my mind. So did Abang. Because Ayah did not want to see the three of us separated, he fought for Adik’s custody and after a long trudging fight, he won the legal battle – a rarity back then because most mothers won custody for children under three years old.

I remember how she would came to pick us up at the school in Kulim and how we used to resist being taken by her – up to the point that some teachers had to ‘assist’ her, forcing us to enter her car and being driven away. I remember how Ayah would come to pick us up at the school in Sungai Petani and how gladly we would jumped in his car and went home to Tok and Tok Ayah in Kulim. This happened a few times; she even sent us to a school in Sungai Lalang to avoid us being picked up by Ayah – but when Ayah finally managed to get us back safely to Kulim, Ayah stopped sending us to school. Hence my younger brother and I missed almost one year of schooling in 1984.

Only after Ayah married Mak, I learned to live a ‘normal’ family life. No midnight fighting, no more sounds of slaps, and my brothers and I were well taken care of.

As for my biological mother – she married another, got two kids and divorced again. My half -brother stayed with her, while my half-sister was raised up by her paternal grandmother. After the divorce, their father had married another woman and he, like my father, remains happily married until now.

The truth is, I was so scared of becoming like her that when I was younger, I even decided not to marry to avoid becoming like her. I was worried since I do take more after her than my father in the looks compartment and since her blood flows in my veins – what if I too, turn out to be just like her? She married two men, got talaq numerous times (three times by my father alone) yet when her ex-husbands married another, they never have to utter another talaq, both happy and satisfied with their new families. Wouldn’t it be better to remain single than married but unable to sustain the marriage?

But as I grew older, I realized that it’s not necessary that I would turn out to be like her. So long as I remain careful not to repeat her mistakes, despite the same blood flowing in our veins, we are two different people. I can’t change her, I can’t change the past, but I am in charge of my own doings, my own future, with Allah’s permission.

If there’s any lesson to be learned, at least I could use my relationship with her as an example of what I want to avoid having with my own children. If my dysfunctional childhood history has to affect my children in any way, I hope it would only be for the better and that’s up to me.