My Sisters.. My Friends

I reached the office quite early today. I was in a chirpy mood because I saw that in the LRT this morning, I wasn’t the only with the mask. There was another lady wearing a mask, except that she was also wearing similar clothes like mine. Cream pants, and cream top, with light brown tudung. Talk about déjà vu. It was just so weird. Anyway, yes.. I wear the mask in the LRT these days. I think it is my responsible to do so. After all, my son isn’t that well, so I can’t be selfish, right. Yes it attracted people to look at me, but, who cares. At least I know that I am doing the right thing.

Anyway, I got to the office. Switched on my PC, and immediately opened the email. I saw an email from a friend, with bright pink writings saying that she wanted to cry. I was a bit taken aback. I mean, ok.. what’s going on. What are you talking about? Then I caught another email at the bottom. A very long one, the writing was blue. Hhmm.. Interesting. Who could this be? I scrolled down. It was Pah.

She wrote a heart-warming email, about each one of us Gurls, and how each of us meant to her. She was obviously in a heart-to-heart mood. Now, these days, it is quite rare to get long emails from Pah. She is VERY busy and I suppose I can understand if we don’t receive long emails from her as often before. But then, everyone’s busy. Oh well. This is what she wrote of me.

“Ja... hmm. Aku tulis nama kau pun cam air mata dah bergenang lol. Camne? I love you girl. We have known each other for so long. I think when I first met you at school, I never thought we would be such good friends. Seriously. You were this (and still is by the way) this posh girl, speaking with (then) unidentified accent (which later i discovered so british lol). With you I can certainly say we have gone through so many phases of friendships, tested, heartache and somehow Allah has kept us together close despite all the challenges. I am thinking how can I miss you when I have just recently met you and spent hours together, but I do!”

For each description given to each Gurl, I smiled to myself. I can totally relate to the incidences that she talked about. It was like as if I know them by heart. She talked about Min, being ‘anak orang kaya yang sombong’, roughly translated, arrogant daughter of a rich man, which is quite funny really because, yes Min seemed arrogant before, but that was because she didn’t know us (once she got to know us, we just couldn’t loose her. She was always there.. hehehehe). And yes, she was MUCH better than the rest of us, having gone to the UK, sponsored by her family, whereas we were sponsored by JPA, and were poor most of the times, laden with debt. But I felt truly blessed to know her, and to be her friend. Yes, I love her very much and treasure every single moment of my friendship with her. She can be a pain, oh God.. yes she can. But somehow, I can absorb those painstaking moments and see pass all that.

I don’t know about Yamm ruffling my hair (she seemed to do that to Pah a lot). Hhmm… I don’t think she’s ever done that to me. But then, I have always been the proud one. And not bothered with all these touches, or manja-manja. But, the moment I remember about Yamm was her generosity in sharing with me her bed whenever I slept over at her house in Dilston Road. And I always seemed to remember how smart she was. This girl, I tell you, has brains. She always seemed to be helping me to understand a lot of things. I was a bit thick, you see. Hehehehe..

I have always seen Izan as the manja one, soft and kind-hearted. And I have also shared her sorrow back then. We were on the bus, on the way to school. She was crying. She just lost her brother. It was a sad moment for us all. I remember we held a Yassin recitation for her brother at my house in Dilston Road, and after that, we watched Bed of Roses on the sky channel. It was nice.

I totally agree with Pah on her views of Murni being very thoughtful. She always seemed to be the considerate one. Always remembering birthdays. I have to admit that I am not that at all but of course it doesn’t mean that I don’t care. I do, it’s just that my way of showing it is a little different, that’s all. And I will never forget Murni’s delivery of that brown sauce which I craved for so much during my pregnancy with Marsya. It was way cool.

Leeya… I have to admit that I didn’t know Leeya so much because we were never in the same class. We also don’t hang out much during college years. So I can’t say much about her during those days. But when I stayed with her, I began to notice little things about her. She had these moods. So when she was into one of her not-so-good moods, I would stay away from her. But when she was in her good moods, she was such a fun person to be with. She would laugh, make fun of you, joke with you and just practically laugh out loud with you. Yeah.. in a way, I miss her too. It’s too bad that she doesn’t stay in KL, otherwise I think it’d be cool to have her around. But I know that she will always be accessible online.

My memory of Noha is rather different. I would always see her as a girl who knew that my Bie (well, at that time, he was just one of the boys, no one special to me) was interested in me. Apparently, she knew, but she didn’t say anything to me. She could really keep a secret. And I still remember her face, smiling from ear to ear when I told her that Bie was coming over because he had something to tell me. We were supposed to have a dance practice that evening for the Malaysian Night, but it was cancelled. So she sort of came over to tell me, or was it to confirm with me. I can’t remember. But when Bie rang the bell, she told me that she sort of knew what he wanted to say. So she ran down the stairs, grinned at Bie and said hi, and left. Yeah.. that was that. Hehehehe.. funny. Of course there were others. After all, she stayed with Min at Dilston Road and I happened to be a frequent visitor.

Zha was like this big sister I never had. Always serious and not as silly as I was back then. Hehehe.. and Makcik, gosh.. I totally agree with Pah. She’s like an onion. You have to pill her skin one layer at a time to discover that she is actually this wonderful person inside. Marsya takes a liking in her so much. Always saying, Aunty Mas, Aunty Mas, and Aunty Mas. Penat aku layan. I think it’s because Makcik put on a bit of lipstick on her lips during Min’s engagement last year. Or was it earlier than that? I don’t know, but my daughter is smitten by her. She’s really great. Vogue yet conservative. That’s Makcik for you.

Finally.. Pah.. [sigh].. she is this most amazing woman who is so passionate about everything be it something she does, or something that she has an opinion of. I don’t know what I would do if she suddenly stopped being my friend, which I hope is NEVER. She is just someone that I want to be around with, hopefully until I grow old and die. Yes we don’t see each other often. But when we do, oh gosh.. I treasure every minute of it. I know that if I have a problem, I can just go up to her and cry my heart out and she didn’t even have to say a thing, but somehow or rather, I am comforted by the silence. Do you know what I mean? It has happened before. And yes, Allah has tested my friendship with her countless times. I remember this awkward moment when we had this stupid fight while we were in Newcastle. For the life of me, I can’t even remember what the fight was about. We also had another stupid argument when we were back in Malaysia. That affected me very much. I was just so sad with it. Biasalah, me and my big mouth, saying things which I shouldn’t have said. Till to this day, I never utter the word in front of her. I was really afraid that we wouldn’t be friends anymore after that incident. Or, even if we were, we wouldn’t be as close. Man, I was so glad that I was wrong. Our friendship remained strong, till today. Amazing isn’t it, how one lady can create an impact on your life. Hhmm..

So yes, the Gurls make an awful lot of difference in my life, and I can’t thank Allah enough for giving them to me. And yes, I love all of them to the max. They will always be in my heart. Insya Allah, forever…