Sakina & Mekina Dear...

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِيم

فَأَمَّا ٱلْيَتِيمَ فَلَا تَقْهَرْ

"Oleh itu, adapun anak yatim maka janganlah engkau
 berlaku kasar terhadapnya" (Ad-Duhaa:9)

Pada suatu malam, saya dan mamat buat keje brutal sket, contiang NIU's pavement. Tak lah brutal mana. Tiba2 ada seorang lelaki Chinese keluar dari pintu entrance dan bertembung dengan kami. Lepas passkan flyer, beliau introducekan diri beliau. Bro. Hassan. Terujaa sgt bila found out, oh dia ni Muslim Chinese, dari China. Beliau nampak kami buat kerja2 mcm ni, dia pon apa lagi, join la dua kaki.

Masa di Sunday school, saya teruja dapat berkenalan dengan dua beradik Chinese. I don't know why. They just stood out like a sore thumb. We hit it off pretty well at first encounter. Lepas habis sesi Sunday school, I decided to walk them home since takda guardian yg datang untuk pick up mereka. Kat situ la peristiwa korek mengorek rahsia berlaku. Lol. Acah je. It's called ta'aruf, okeh.

Rupa2nya mereka ni anak2 Bro. Hassan. They don't have their mother around anymore. Ha, tersentap. Terus terasa attached pula dengan mereka ni. Eeek. Bukan sahaja sebab kami ni saudara Muslim, tetapi juga kerana kami dari Asia, dia dari China, saya dari Malaysia (dekat, tuu) dan sebab dia bermata sepet dan saya juga (menurut kawan2 Western). Tetiba rasa nak ambil mereka jadi anak angkat walaupun mengikut kiraan umur saya yang muda, saya lebih layak jd kakak angkat. huahuahua. Perasan tua (dah asek2 kena hentam je bila perasan muda). Ultimately saya rasa attached kat mereka sbb perasaan kasih kot. Imagine losing your mom at young age. Imagine not having sentuhan ibu when you're growing up.  There are things about mothers that only mothers posses and not fathers.

Anyway, they came to the US with their dad and grandparents yang maashallah pious2 belaka. During winter trip, mamat and I received a message from Br. Hassan telling that he was going back and thank you for being Sakina and Mekina's favorite bro and sis. I was like "aaaaaaaww *__*, sejak bila pulak nihh. I knew the sepetness brought us together! And I knew I was too young to be their mother." The community gathered for Br. Hassan two days before his take off. Alhamdulillah, the night before, Allah gave us (Bettunia baji, Sharif and I) to take the kids to the Huskie's Den to play some games.

We played bowling.

Me: Have you played bowling before?
Mekina: What is bowling?
Bettunia: Bowling is when you throw a heavy ball down the aisle and try to hit as many pins as possible.
Sakinah: Oh yeah, I've played that before. In computer.

After one game, we moved on to play Wii. They chose to play bowling game, in Wii. Ayy..:D
Then bawak mereka makan frozen yogurt. They were so excited so was I, because it was really my request not theirs. Hehe. Hey, nobody objected.

Alhamdulillah, what I could reflect from this whole experience, is that kids treasure these moments, BIG TIME. They would remember their teachers' faces (and names sometimes), for life. I only tried to enrich their childhood memories by being part of them just a little bit so that our next encounter would be sweeter, inshallah (walaupun the bitter part could be, I'd be all wrinkly and oldy by then, enough to be their grandmoma. Say whaaa???…yang awet muda please! ;)) Sebab tu dengan budak2, saya paksa pelukan ke atas mereka. Kalau mereka taknak, saya kejar sampai dapat. How can you be so cold? I only offer warmth and fond memories.

I honestly don't know and cannot phantom Br. Hassan's struggle in bringing up the kids as Muslims in China as a single parent. As my many other friends. Nor can I imagine how easy and great of Allah's help there is in making it all beyond possible :) May they and we be in the care and protection of Al-Muhaimin (The True Guardian) always regardless of having both parents by your side, no parents, single parent or neglected by both. The True Care Taker (or Baby Sitter, whatever you wanna call Him) since we were babies had always been Him. Rabb kita. To whom do we think babies cling their trust to, not knowing what would be done to them, what provision was there for them, if not Allah? Subhanallah redhanya baby ni. Tu pasal la kene gomol2 pun tak ckp apa2. :D Am I making this up? Apa yg saya nak katakan, mereka ni mungkin lebih faham dan boleh relate more to nasib Rasul SAW yang sejak kecil lagi dah jd orphan. What an honor! They can say, "I feel ya, Habibullah (SAW)". Surely I can't. Not in a million years because I didn't go through the same experience. Mereka advanced kaw2 punya dlm belajar erti kebergantungan kat Allah, if and only if they take Allah as their Al-Muhaimin. Maashallah :) Kadang2 topik orphanage ni macam taboo sket. Sensitip, org kata. Kenapa? Jangan kesian sgt kat depa ni. Depa ni lebih kuat drpd kita sebenarnya. They say, no pain no gain.

So this, I tribute to my little precious friends, Sakina, Mekina, my sweet sistah in Chicago, my bestie and the dearest orphans yang qawiy out there. Juga, to the people who kept in touch with me sambil mereka berjaulah dan ziarah ke China dan Baitullah. Tu yang teringat kat budak2 ni. Ckp pal hijrah dan musafirkan…subhanallah. I felt honored because they allowed me in through their kembara insights as they travel. :) Doakan rezqi saya pula dapat ke travel dan melihat bumi Allah dengan luas lagi. Sejak bila pandai tribute2 pulak nih.

كَلَّا ۖ بَلْ لَا تُكْرِمُونَ الْيَتِيمَ

Jangan demikian, (sebenarnya kata-kata kamu itu salah). Bahkan (perbuatan kamu wahai orang-orang yang hidup mewah, lebih salah lagi kerana) kamu tidak memuliakan anak yatim, (Al-Fajr:17)

Disclaimer: The other side of ateeqanasha came up pulak time type post ni. Tu yg bahasa pun mcm cannot go sket. Harap maklum >_<