The legacy within me

Today marks a very special day. It’s the first day of the Ramadan fasting month for Muslims in many parts of South East Asia. I often look forward to this month because it allows me yet another chance to reflect on myself, my values and spirituality.

We began the day early at 5am, when my husband and I got up for our pre-dawn meal of oats porridge for him and a banana date smoothie for me. We often spend this time of the morning in silence, just savouring the quiet peace which is a rare occurrence in our household these days. As usual, my phone was abuzz with messages from family group chats, wishing everyone a blessed Ramadan and a good suhoor. I don’t usually look at my phone in the early hours of the morning as a habit, but decided to entertain some of the greetings back.

The rest of the day went as it should, at least in this new normal. I went back to bed after my morning prayer and supplications, and after attending to my 15-month-old daughter’s demand for her first milk feed of the day. I squeezed in a quick shut eye, got up and had our housekeeper attend to the kids, got ready for the work day ahead, dropped the kids off while my husband made his way to the office on his own. After getting the kids to their daycare centre, I settled in at my desk in my home office.

In previous years, this would be the time when I would squeeze in a quick call to check in on my dad and ask how he was doing. I would ask him what he had to eat for breakfast before taking his medications, he would ask me how my family and I were doing, before reassuring me that he was okay and letting me get on with my day. But this year, that was missing. This would be my very first Ramadan without him.

It’s inevitable to feel a nagging sense of emptiness in the first “special occasion” of whatever it is that you are commemorating or observing, after losing a loved one. And this is no different to me.

I had braced myself for the whirlwind of emotions that I would feel during this period, and I guess the mental prep I had subjected myself to has helped me get through the day.

But there is no brushing aside memories that had came to my mind as I sit here in quiet solitude as everyone else has gone to bed.

The past month had been yet another trying period as my siblings and I embarked on the administrative journey to put my father’s flat to sale. It was, as you can imagine, not an easy process for us emotionally as that was the house the three of us grew up in. This would be the last of the process we had to get through as part of my father’s estate administration, and probably the hardest.

Naturally, some of us struggle to let go as it pains us to part with people or things that give invaluable meaning to our lives.

But as I reflect on everything that has happened, I’ve decided that the best and most valuable “inheritance” that my parents had left behind live within me.

They are the values that make me. The values that my parents had imparted in me, whether directly or indirectly. It’s their work ethic, their perseverance to give the best to the family they were raising, and their fierce love. These intangibles will always live within me and I know that nothing or no one can take these away from me.

And it’s this knowledge that is keeping me intact today.

It is going to be a different Ramadan, and Eid, this year. I don’t think I will stop feeling the emptiness, but at least I can remind myself that both my parents still live within me, through their legacy and values that I will carry forward in my own ways.