LETTER | The gifts they leave behind

LETTER | Every Sunday afternoon, my wife and I usually make our weekly trip to the supermarket.

The routine is almost always the same. One of us pushes the trolley (me or one of the boys) while the other checks the shopping list. Rice. Eggs. Vegetables. Chicken. Instant coffee if it is running low.

Someone inevitably asks whether we really need another bottle of chilli sauce when there is still an unopened one sitting in the kitchen cabinet.

By the time we reach the cashier, the trolley somehow contains a few things that were never on the original list.

It is such an ordinary part of the week that I never really thought much about it until recently.

Growing up in Pontian, Johor, our grocery shopping [or what Mak (mother) called “belanja” (spending)] happened on Saturdays instead.

Back then, Johor's weekend fell on Friday and Saturday, so Saturday morning was when mum would take us boys to the Chinese sundry shop to buy whatever the family needed for the coming week.

Always on credit, each purchase was written neatly in the “Buku 555” (small notebook) and paid on “abah’s” (father) payday.

As children, we never questioned why groceries always appeared in the kitchen or why there was always cooking oil, rice and onions in the cupboard. We certainly never thought about the planning behind it. It was simply what parents did.

Curiosity during childhood

Perhaps that is one of the curious things about childhood. We rarely notice the routines that quietly keep our lives together because someone else has already done the noticing for us. These days, I catch myself doing exactly the same thing.

Without thinking very much about it, I find myself checking whether there is enough milk in the refrigerator, whether the boys have something to eat when they return home, or whether we should buy an extra packet of biscuits because visitors might drop by during the week.

None of these decisions feels particularly significant. Yet somehow, they have become part of my own weekends, just as naturally as they once belonged to my parents.

The same thing happens in other parts of life too. Whenever the boys return from school, my wife and I almost instinctively ask how their day went.

If examinations are approaching, I ask whether they are coping well and whether there is anything they are struggling with.

I am not sure they always appreciate the questions. I know I probably did not when I was their age. Looking back, however, I realised that my mum asked very similar questions throughout my own school years.

She was not checking examination results as much as she was checking on me.

Old habits

Then there is one habit that still catches me by surprise. Whenever my wife is about to drive somewhere on her own, I almost always say, "Drive ‘leklok’ (elok-elok) – drive carefully.

The words leave my mouth so naturally that I hardly notice them anymore. It was only recently that I realised where I had first heard them.

Growing up, that was exactly what my dad would say to my mum whenever she was about to leave the house. My mum is the driver in our household, you see.

And somewhere along the way, without consciously deciding to, I had quietly inherited the same words.

The older I become, the more I suspect that this is how parents remain with us. Not only through photographs, recipes or family stories, but through ordinary habits that slowly become our own.

We inherit the questions they used to ask, the worries they quietly carried and the little reminders they repeated so often that, years later, we find ourselves saying exactly the same things without even realising it.

It has only been since my mum left us that I have begun noticing these quiet inheritances more clearly. They were probably there all along.

I simply never had a reason to stop and ask where they came from. Strange how absence sometimes teaches us to notice what presence quietly kept hidden.

Next Sunday, my wife and I will probably find ourselves pushing another trolley through another supermarket.

We will debate whether we really need another packet of instant noodles, still adding a few unnecessary items to the trolley anyway, and make our way home before dinner.

Later during the week, I will almost certainly ask the boys about school, and before my wife drives off after dropping me at the office, I know exactly what I will say.

Perhaps that is one of the quietest gifts our parents leave behind. Long after they are no longer standing beside us, we continue loving the people around us in ways that first belonged to them.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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