Raya Preparations

Hari Raya Puasa is coming and we have 6 days left of fasting. It's also a crucial week for many of us to do last minute shopping, cleaning up, baking and cooking. This Hari Raya, I would be making my first grave visit to my dad. It still hits me right in my tender heart that he is no longer around with us after battling with his illness which got worse ever since the start of this year. To be honest with you, I have never visited anyone's grave before even that of my late grandparents. I dunno why but I have a morbid thought in me concerning graves like they're pretty scary to be at. But when I watched the whole burial process, I didnt see it as any burial process and I didnt feel scared or anything but I saw it as seeing my father being placed at his final resting place where he would no longer suffer the cruelty of life. When he first got into a state of unconsciousness and then getting out of it, he became a different person..somewhat withdrawn into his own world despite being out of danger. Only in recent times did I know that he was contemplating on death as he knew his time was up and he didnt want to cause my family any upset.

My aunt said that it is sinful to mourn for the dead or crying over a lost loved one after the first three days of death. Try not to cry when your husband or even your children, *touch wood*, were to ever leave this world and you tell me if it is easy to control the tears like turning off a tap. I have lived with my father for 27 years and there is no way I can afford not to cry over him because of the long impact he has on my life and how I felt responsible for his death because my family's state of finance did not allow me to get him his medicine regularly.

Nevertheless, my father who had never been someone to trouble other people and would rather keep the problems to himself, continued his own private tradition of not causing us any trouble by refusing to go through the dialysis treatment. However, because he was unconscious and my only concern for him was that I wanted him to get better, I let the doctors give him the dialysis of which he resented it when he woke up. However, no medicinal treatment could help him and he finally succumbed to his illness one fateful night.

So this Hari Raya, though Im celebrating it without my dad, it will still be a family affair for me for that one moment when I visit his grave and offer my prayers to him. I hope you know I think of you every day.

On a happier note, my mother has been planning on what to cook for us. Normally, on the eve of Hari Raya and in the morning, my mum's friend and my father's younger sister would give us food to eat. Mostly, my father would eat but this year, my mum specifically told her friend not to give us food because I would feel sad as he was the one who would eat the food. Actually, the actual reason was because I dont eat them and my mother has problems eating it too because she could not get used to the taste of kampung chicken and the dishes were rather spicy for her. My dad could not eat too much spicy food too but his logic was that people was kind enough to give us food to eat and it was a gift from God that we have food on the table on this joyous occasion so he would lap up the food.

Anyway, she has a bit of a headache as to what to cook for us. My brother does not contribute because he does not eat the traditional Raya food unless it's non spicy. Yup, apparently he not only inherits my mother's asthmatic condition but also her sensitive stomach. For me, I've given up totally on coconut milk based dishes and savouries this year after cutting down slowly on their consumption over the last couple of years. Even if I do eat them, it's just basically a bite or two like Im at some food tasting convention and also because my mum forced me to eat them at least a bit if it's quite a lot for her like the beef rendang.

The thing is, she may say that okay fine, I will eat whatever you guys eat even if they're not remotely traditional hari raya food but she has been talking non stop about dishes like rendang, lemak cili padi, briyani rice, sayur lodeh and etc implying that she is craving for this food. I know my mother so well that it will be the death of our ears until she gets her wishes to eat these dishes so I say, you dont have to cater to us. You want to eat them, you can eat them and I will help you get the ingredients and go to the market. So she said okay and concluded that if she cooks them thoroughly enough, she can store them in the fridge and reheat them for consumption on other days so it's fine with her if I dont eat them. Anyway she has kinda got used to the routine already in regards to my eating habits like how I've been turning it up a notch recently like not only have I given up coconut based dishes but oily and fried food except for some occasional times because I have a teenage brother who, although is more health conscious now, does have occasional cravings for fast food being a typical growing up boy.

Thus, I have been buying them like earlier on, when I went to the NTUC fair price hypermarket to stock up before they run out later. I suppose because my mum is not a typical housewife who gets herself busy in the kitchen or at home, it will be a 'miss' for me if I at least dont try out her cooking. Oh well, the world is not going to end if I put up the courage to eat her festive dishes. In respect to my eating habit, she is not using the original coconut milk readily available at the wet market but rather the boxed ones sold in supermarkets which have been processed with no cholesterol. Even though logically speaking, coconut milk IS coconut milk, at least she tried to cater to my needs as well because being a mum, I dont think it is in her to see her children not eating while she is enjoying her food.

Let's see how it goes because I really dont know if she will still be upbeat about wanting to cook for hari raya as she is known, among me and my brother, that she will have last minute change of plans when she decided she is just plain lazy.

Anyway, if you are celebrating hari raya, what are you or your family cooking this year? :)