Noorur-rahman

Eid And The Family Drama

Eid is meant to be a time of joy and blessing for the entire Muslim community and a time for distributing one's wealth. Charity to the poor is a highly emphasized value in Islam. The Quran says, "Believe in Allah and his messenger, and give charity out of the (substance) that Allah has made you heirs of.
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October, 2012

The idea of traveling several miles away just to celebrate joy with other people, still doesn't add up to me. At least not with the kind of relatives my father have, I find it so unnecessary and time consuming. The road was pretty occupied by moving vehicles most of which are traveling to their hometowns or anywhere where there is loved one, only to celebrate with happy faces. It had been a very old tradition for people who valued it just like my father.

I glanced at abbah's clenched left hand on steering wheel, I don't know if he was tired or it was just me being guilty. He was keen of driving me around whether it's school, shopping or even visiting a friend. Although there is a driver to do that, but traveling like this, I think bring us closer to one another. My dad loves being the chauffeur for his angel as he something like it to put it, the love of his life, I know I am. Life has given us so many blows, so it has always been the two of us, like cell phone and battery. So this is us in our free time, although it's not an everyday thing, abbah barely have time to eat three square meal at home.

It had been two hours since we left Abuja where we live and Abbah wasn't willing to say a word to me, I offended him and maybe that's why he is looking serious or he was just giving thought to what I said. It was so boring already and I know he is feeling it too, happened to stay quiet at each other all that long. To top it all up, the network signal was pretty unsettle on this road and for the umpteenth time I rolled my eyes at the latest iPhone I am using, the battery was down again, as if it wasn't fully charged before we hit the road. I cringe at myself and look out through the window, The blazing midday sun shone relentlessly on the travelers and the roadside vendors.
I am quite sure it's hot out there. I inwardly thank Allah for being in that car.

Allah! Hmm, I could hear the siren of the islamic police in my head. Trying to remind me how undeserving of that I am. Sometimes I feel like a complete hypocrite mentioning Him, at times I feel my mind calling out to him but nothing ever happened. I was defeated there. And I don't even want go there or thought about it. Brushing the thought away, I glanced at abbah again and his attention was centered on the road. On normal occasion it would have been a banter, he'd have shared so many stories with me by now. Telling me how he used to travel in a commercial transport to get to Abuja before even he got a job, talk less of owning a car. And sometimes it was lift he follows. They're remarkable stories, which always make it fun for us traveling together, I love it and I missed it today.

Some were moral lessons which I neither use nor throw away, I myself have no idea why I'm saving them up. Instead of just shoving them up in the trash bin along with many others. But I couldn't bring myself to do that, it was my abbah we are talking about, I love him too much to throw his memories like that.

"Abbana, paapi, daddy," I sang like a three years old child and pouted, I know he can't resist that playful side of me. "I am sorry, paapi. I know I shouldn't have said that. Will you forgive your naughty girl, I won't say it again. Ever!" And I know I look so apologetic, but I was sincere. So I smiled at him and his eyes soften creasing his lips with a smile.

I had earlier told him that his family doesn't care about him but his money, which is the truth. Abbah knows that very well too, but he have an agenda to care for them despite all that. He don't want to throw the family ties they shared, it seems like it. They were his blood and such ties are not easily cut off just like that, that're his exact words. And his father's last wish was to unite them as a family and save the relationship, after all life has shade of different dark colors and some people will always have their greed. Indeed, there's so much darkness than light in this life and I have witness that. It doesn't always shone everyone's one life.