A Heartfelt Tribute to a Teacher

-

 


The teacher I have been meaning to see just died.  I am full of remorse.  I hope I get to see him in heaven.  I want to tell him how much he meant to me.  He was teaching elementary six when I was in elementary four.  I was bored and was hanging around at the back of his class.  He was the assistant head then. He did not scold me but asked what was the matter.  I said I ran out of reading materials.  I had read all the books in all the cupboards in the school.


He offered his books in exchange for chores.  His house was just next to the school.  His living room was full of books.  Whenever I finished my school work, I would do simple chores like sweeping his house or cleaning clams or cutting vegetables.  I was delighted to have books to read.  There were classic Malay literature books as well as modern Malay novels.


By the time I was in elementary five, he arranged weekend trips with two other girls.  He said he was afraid to drive in an empty car, always imagining someone would poke him from the back seats. I went to my first fun fair with him.  For the first time, my world widened.  


After year six, when I was offered a place in a boarding school, he took care of the paperwork.  He bought the badminton racket and the Quran as required by the list posted by the school.  I was so grateful that I made a silent private vow that one day I would be “somebody “.  .


In boarding school, I wrote to him and continued writing when I went to Australia.  He was posted somewhere away from my village and I had no way of visiting him.  In my second year of medical school, I had to make the very difficult decision of shifting to psychology.  I realized very clearly that I was in no way suited to medical study.


I felt I  was such a failure and I stopped writing to him. I felt I was not good enough, he would be disappointed in me.  When I came back, I sought him out and visited.  He was delighted.  I promised myself that I would make something of my career.


When I became ill, it became hard to succeed.  I chose to focus on my students and put aside research and writing.  It became harder and harder to visit him. I felt guilty for not making it.  When I went to do my hajj pilgrimage, I sent him two prayer mats.  He was so excited he called to thank me.  I should have known he genuinely cared for me.  His generosity has allowed me to remain compassionate and open hearted.  Al Fatihah to the teacher who helped me get an education. I wish I had known this in my head and my heart:




Websites: www.distilledmoment.com

                 www.redha.net

Email.    : distilledmoment@gmail.com

Instagram username : halijah.mohd

Twitter handle: @distilledmoment


Comments

  1. Unknown23 December 2021 at 21:08

    My take away-everyone has a different path n therefore a different journey of experience.. Puan Halijah's sound really tough.. need a strong mind to handle

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HanitaMahmood24 December 2021 at 06:10

      Thank you for writing in. We all have to make the best of what we are given on our plate. In gratitude for whatever I have been given

      Delete

New comments are not allowed.

Popular posts from this blog

Movement and Exercise

-
Image
1990 and 2007 were two very difficult years for me.  In 1990, I lost my body-brain coordination.  I could not accurately bring a glass of water to my mouth.  I had to hang on to walls to walk.  It took two to three years prior to 1990 before I was diagnosed with SLE (lupus).  Other than steroid shots, there were many medications I could not tolerate.  In the end, I turned to prayers and intense inner focus.  I imagined small movement sequences again and again until they became very real and clear in my mind.  I asked my five year old to teach me to play the piano.  He taught me to connect the musical notes to the piano keys and my fingers.  My twelve year old had a typing game on the computer.  I practised on it several times a day.  Jane Fonda videos were also around the house.  I bought them for my fourteen year old.  I used them a few minutes a day till my feet could step to the music.  Within six weeks, I wen...
Read more

My Sewing History

-
Image
When I was little, one of my favourite chores was keeping dry goods into bottles.  Sugar, flour, salt were packed into old newspapers.  The shopkeeper would take the amount needed from a large sack, huge tin or earthenware urn and wrap the goods with pieces of newspaper.  That gave me some reading material and a glimpse of a world outside of my village. When I was ten, I saw a picture of a "twist" dress on one of those newspaper pieces.  It was a dress cut slim to the hips and then the bottom half would be gathered full. When you dance the "twist", the bottom half would flare up, exaggerating your movement. The folly of a pre teen :-) The picture conjured up such a pretty vision in my head. I showed it to my mother and asked her to make it for me.  She was livid! Every year in the month of Ramadan, my father would buy a bolt of material for my mother to make clothes for us to celebrate Syawal.  For that year, my mother gave me whatever was left after making...
Read more

My Grieving Process

-
Image
As my grief moves from centre stage, my forlorn rebounder (tiny trampoline) and slant board gain my attention.  So too my various weights and resistance bands.  All were gathering dust in the past three or four months.  Grief took a lot out of me.  It is still there, I am allowing it to come and go as it pleases, but it no longer consumes me.  I am beginning to take tiny steps to regain some physical strength.  It is very easy to give in to pain and not move at all.   I used to read, listen or watch Peter Attia and he offered ample evidence that flexibility and mobility could be maintained if, as we age, muscle mass is not excessively lost. https://peterattiamd.com/ “Peter Attia explores strategies and tactics to increase lifespan, healthspan, and well-being, and optimize cognitive, physical, and emotional health” Time to read my unopened emails from Peter! My easiest go to movement is walking  https://youtu.be/R10u9h7j24E This video points o...
Read more