Mak

Yesterday I saw Mak.

I went to see her in her room, salam her, kissed her cheeks.  She said something I could not catch nor understood.  I sat down beside her bed to speak to her anyway.  Expecting more answers I would not understand.  She touched my head, caressing it lovingly, smiling at me with her lips and her eyes.  Then she touched my face and I just smiled, not letting her see the feeling of bewildered I felt inside.

Mak is my ex-mother-in-law.

Extremely fierce and fastidious with a temper to suit.  She was the epitome of the mother-in-law every wife feared.  Even when Abah was still alive and was the head of the family, everyone knew, Mak was the one who made the decisions. Mak rules.  Big time.

So when a young and lost 18 year old found herself entering Mak's household, it felt like she was walking into a lioness's den.   I was frowned upon like an ugly duckling.

No matter how hard I tried, given my age at that time, it was not good enough. The base of the foundation I was brought up could not match the strength of Nasaruddin's family.  What more with Mak's higher than normal standards.   Eventually everything caved in and I was thrown back into life as a struggling single mother.

If only they knew how much I had looked forward to be a part of their family since my own  was falling apart.  How I wanted to experience life in a kampung, in a proper Malay extended family surrounding where traditions still exist. In my 18 year old mind, I thought that was the perfect life.  Never  that I knew,  the stronger and  respected and awed the family, they are usually made out of rigid and unrelenting traditions, rules, standards, which none includes a young bride from a different orbit, something the cat dragged in.

I went back to my own 'ca-ca-marba' world but would drop by to see Mak whenever the occassion opportune itself.  Everybody thought why in the world would I see someone who had been a part of my biggest failure, but I would.  Maybe for the girls.  So that they know the other side of their family. And derive some good qualities I do not possess.

As Mak grew older, she became softer (weaker). When she started to not recognise people, I stopped going.

Before I went home last night, I crawl up beside her bed  and asked her long-time maid Siti, "dia kenal Akak ke Siti?", hoping that it was really me she was looking lovingly at.

"Kenal Kak".

"Betol ke, Siti?"

Then Mak started to caress my head again, my face and smiled.

"Betol Kak".

If anyone saw Mak and I at that moment, with me patting her to sleep and her touching my head and my face, an act so close and so sincere,  no one would guess that once, long time ago, I was the unwanted and unwelcomed daughter-in-law.

I pushed my luck and let that moment last longer,  feeling her touch, her love and let the painful past memories evaporate.

Finally...finally...Mak accepted me.

Its a good ending.