Relic

I was reminiscning good memories about my father the whole morning. Not in a sad kinda way.

I remember my mother telling me how my father's mother was such a sweet and simple woman, she once declared that if my father's first child is a daughter, she would like it if she lives with her. This was a woman who never learned, or refused to learn, how to use a gas stove. Imagine what kind of a woman I would have became if she lived to see the day I was born. I would be perfect for Pencarian Gadis Melayu show!

Anyhow, it so happened that this morning, a colleague approached my table and asked me if I know anyone in this office originating from Melaka. She got this nice sort of like a mini encyclopedia on Melaka printed on thick glossy paper, the pages are all colored. She got it while attending a conference but since the book deals more on history and cultural heritage which does not have much to do with her project, she figures she should give it someone who would appreciate it better.

I can't really explain my feeling at that moment. I feel like I was being spoken to. Since the concept of life after death does not exist in our religion, so it was not possible that I was being spoken to by the spirit of my deceased father. Though the idea was a romantic one but I have to dismiss it although it would make just the perfect plot Ghost Whisperer had the show survived another season.

Maybe it was just pure coincidence and I told her my father was indeed from Melaka but I never got the chance to go there since by the I was born, there was nobody left at the kampung anymore. The later generation of my father's family just simply left after their predecessor died. Sure my father brought us a couple of times there but at that time it was just another fun family trip (naik kereta lembu and all); being young and unknowing, I never tried to look past that.

She simply said, well good, then I should give the book to my father for him to relive his childhood hometown and perhaps for me to re-trace my root and history.

I accepted the book with a warm feeling in my heart.