the 2nd coming

like your brother, u come unassuming and un-announced. we'd thought we'd know ur game plan. we even try to change the rule a bit by choosing ur birthdate and timing but i guess God knows best and the best planner of all.

it was the night before u were born. we were ready for the planned adventure. weeks before we were having this little talk on how we can plan things up. that a little drip of fluid can help u decide to come out there and then. since ur already full term, well the early part of it, we'd go along. after all it would be easier and less risk compared to a emergency wailing across rush hour traffic jam of Kuala Lumpur. you're a Prince Court Medical Centre after all, right at the smack of KL rush hour centre. well maybe not in the middle but close enough.

where was i, son? oh yeah the agreeing. i must note that i didnt quite agree to it. it seems unnatural, trying to push u to decide to come out. u must make the decision. call me old school but the baby will chose when to introduce himself. but i'd go along, dragging my feet away.

there are advantages. we plan all day. and we even left ur big brother at TokBak and TokMak house. says goodbye, and choose our sweet time to travel. it was quiet the travel. this time the destination matters as well, but the journey as usual, matters too.

it rained quite heavily that night. that's one more similarities between ur birth and Danish, rain. i suppose a washing is what this world need to welcome u, son. i was having a bad migrain before we left. i think the both of us says our good bye with heavy heart. there is a slight thought, a quiver, a renegade feeling that this might be the last goodbye. but i shove it as soon as it started to spore. shove it far far away, buried deep beneath whats more important. focus. u and ur mother needs me. so go away all fears and misguided thoughts. focus.

and there we were in the Proton Persona car, the one with the burberry tea colour that was the family car, trodding along towards the inevitable. the night was clear i remember. it was dark, and there was no moon, but i remember thinking to myself how clear the air was. and there was many cars on the road. no jam though but many still. shouldn't the world stop for a while? shouldnt everything wait? the 2nd coming is near. we didnt talk so much. i remember smiling and trying to cheer up ur mother. this is the part where i hate. u see, son, its a place where i cant do much. because it will be between u and ur mother for the most part. when its time for u to wait for ur child, u will understand this agony of inability.

we were to check in into the ward. it was a nice room. even my bed was nice. the view was great as well. the plan was, that we'd get ur mother on the drip, and by the time the drip ended in the morning, u will be ready to come. but surprise surprise, like ur brother, the midwife check and sighed. much to my delight, she cant give ur mother the drip. it seems, that far from letting the world push u to a decision, u have decided.

and so we spent that night, the night before u were born at this hotel called PCMC. the food was great! but tht's another post altogether. and the view was to die for. this is how KLCC looks like after midnight, son.

all in all, ur coming was a lot calmer, and a lot faster than Danish. but ur mother being the warrior woman that she is, decline any epidural again. it was a bigger labor room. there's a LCD TV. the nurses were better, more experienced. and this time i didnt let u out of my sight. they did everything in the room. and they let me proclaim the Azan to ur ears before anything else. the good doctor did offer me to cut ur unbillical cords. i declined. because its not important. ur important. and it was all there is. u have cometh.

satellite feeds

By the time u understand how the digital world works, and that how codes based on simple binary system could keep representation of life and the real world forever, well theoritically, i know u would start to enquire this. but understand this first. no matter how much the representation resembles the life, there is nothing more important than life itself. and so, whatever u will be end up doing, or things that u will be developing, never lose this essence so that u wont be too lost even if u do lost your way, life takes priority. this piece of wisdom is brought to you by Isaac Asimov through his works in I, Robot. the book, not the movie.

and oh, yeah here's some of your earliest picture post-birth. possible an hour or so-enough time for the nurses to clean u up, for me to recite the azan to your ear, while holding u Lion King style, enough time for the good doctor to fix ur mother up and brought her to her room. when all of the important things are done, and evrything is stable and resting and food has been eaten, then i rushed to the babies room to snaps some pictures of you, through a glass window. wouldnt want u and your fellow just-born collegues to be friendly yet with germs.

this was when i was using that retched iPaq as a sorry excuse for a smartphone. u see this was the time when HP just merged (bought?) with Compaq. the quality wasnt good, but its all i have to snaps pictures of you. and snaps i did. the hospital wrapped you around with tigger and pooh motives on a yellow landscape blanket, which i thought they're giving it to each newborn. which was a wrong assumption, i found out a little while later. :)

lousy camera that iPaq. no shutter speed priority, no aperture setting, no manual focus, not even a decent LED flash. but these pictures are priceless. a treasure i would carry on forever. the ones taken by the phone camera. and definitely the one taken by my eyes and memory..

Rainy day

it was a rainy day when u came. when it all started. really heavy rain. i didn't noticed right away- your mother didn't at all. it was when i was coming and going between rooms to the general area, sorting things our for your mother, calling relatives, getting a single bedded room, payments etc that i noticed trough a small window at the end of a long corridor and thought oh how heavy the rain it was outside. so heavy that the anheastologist was stuck in a jam outside, and that your mother's gynaecologist had called him up and told him not to bother.. because you're on your way out. fast. and that's how the world greeted you, son. With gushing winds, and heavy rains pouring down to wash away itself for your arrival but no storm, no thunder, just deafening white noise to silence the rest of the maddening world... waiting patiently for you to break the silence.

we didn't expected you that weekend son, that was actually the first day that we put the in-case-of-now-emergency bag in the car. and off we go to see the good doctor for your mother weekly check-up, with plans to go to alamanda afterwards, only to be told, that we're not going anywhere soon, because sit tight, you're getting out. we didn't even had time to get lunch. and ur mother didn't even see the room that i booked, because they put her straight to the operation room. she's already 7 cm, they said. you'd understand when you're older with a wife in labor, son.

and so there she was, your mother in labor pain, with no epidural, pushing and pushing you out. the nurses tried to keep me out of the operation room, to no avail of course. we won't be going to that hospital next time, not with tht attitude. ur mother was in pain, and sleepy at the same time, the result from the happy gas she took from time to time. with a few thrust - well a lot actually, you're out, and the nice lady doctor greeted you with a salam and presented you to us, like a wonderful birthday present, lo behold, 'tis be thee child! a first born male! of course she's Malay and don't speak ancient English, but she did make it a point to prove that ur a boy, and that her scanning machine was ehem, indeed correct. as if we were unbelievers of technology.

and that was it. you've arrrived, and it's me and your mother eagerly welocming you. our bundle of joy, our firstborn. the nurses cleaned you up, did some measurements and wrapped you before handing you to me so that i may held you up and deliver an azan and an iqamah to your fragile ears- so that within these first few moments of your arrival, that you hear first your calling. and you stopped crying and paid attention to the words. and as soon as the doctor done with ur mother, we placed you at her bosom, and to our amazement you start to sucle on your own. what a clever child you are, son.

i could go on and on about your birth. everything is as fresh as it was yesterday in my mind. but i'll save some for later and end this now. enough for an introduction, a breaking of ice. and no, i didnt understand it either why they call it breaking the ice. but as soon you will learn, sometimes you just need to follow along with the world, and focus on the really important stuffs. after all we have a whole lifetime to do just that. our journey had just begun on one rainy afternoon, and oh did i mention it was a day before your first Ramadhan, the moment you start to cry, a few seconds after the bright light of the operating theather hits you - and it was the most beutiful tune we ever heard. but it wasn't one f those evergreen ones, it fall out of the chart after a few days. and the adventure begins, so here we go, son.