Dilemma...

I received an email from Adik the other day asking me not to buy my tickets yet since Mama suggested that I don't go home at all. I was a bit disappointed and disheartened by the email, not least because I have been planning 1oo1 things to do if/when I go home. I didn't go home last summer since I thought it was going to be my last summer, and naturally I missed home terribly now. I missed my cats more than anything else. Of course I missed my parents above all else, but I get to speak to them over the phone regularly (even if voip stunt lines sometimes leave a lot to be desired!), but I long to hold my cats once more. When I was in first year, mama kept from me about Misai's passing, until I dreamed about it, and when she finally told me, it had been more that six months! Misai was the closest to me and even when I'm writing this, tears are flooding in my eyes thinking about him. May Allah take care of him.

I think I've blogged about my cats before, but since I came back from autumn 2006, I lost count of who died, who were the newborns and who got picked up from the market, and who came from the bushes at night. By 'who' I mean the cats of course. It's a long story - the history of how we get to keep cats at home in Napoh. It started with Pung (the mother, cos she had a son named Pong as well and he ran away while I was home for summer).

And then I knew that Misai came to our house at night as a little kitten hungry and cold, and my parents fed him and let him stay. And then Anne came as a beautiful teenager. Anne is the strongest of them all, she came as a full-grown cat (mama said she was already remaja) and bore many many kittens than we cared to count, many of whom died along the way, but she kept on bearing beautiful kittens for us. Even now, when her surviving children started to get pregnant, she got pregnant too:) Talking about being productive. And did I tell you she was beutiful?

And how did this entry become a story about cats? I should really keep my focus!

Anyways, the day after I read the email from Adik, I called home, and since nobody picked up the phone, I called abah, my parents were on the road, so I said I'd call back and then I forgot. Two mornings later, I called again and then cried over the phone to abah. I didn't do it intentionally, it was because I was so sad for not being able to go home. I missed so many things about home, it's hard to even list them down. I've never even seen Anis, my brother Bangcik's first born and my parents' first grand-daughter since she was born a few weeks after I flew back here in autumn 2006.

I missed durian, I missed cendoi, I missed Asun's market on Friday mornings, I missed the heat, I missed going out to surau with Abah, I missed going out for a ride and talking about politics, and I missed everything else I could not do here. Like riding a motorcycle to work. Like teasing and bullying Ikram. Like being angry with the cats and chickens when they decided to dirty the floors after I spent my energy mopping them several times! I missed feeding the cats and just watching them eating like hungry little things, even if they've been fed three times before! I missed them crawling on my feet whilst I mixed their food (boiled fishes and freshly cooked rice), and trying to warn them that it's still hot. I missed giving them a bath when they're super dirty and smelly and needless to say getting a few scratches in the procession. I missed them dearly:(