Friday, September 10, 2010

Disability on Hariraya Aidilfitri


As far as I can remember in my adult life, this is the second time that I could not celebrate Aidilfitri in good health. The first time was some years ago when I came down with hypertension or high blood pressure. The doctor in a private hospital which treated me discharged me a few days before the festive day with an ample supply of medication. But the pills given were not effective on me and my blood pressure reached the ceiling forcing me to remain half conscious for a few days.
I went back to the hospital after the festival, was treated with a new pill and the pressure immediately came down. It seems that even doctors play a guessing game when it comes to prescribing the right pills for hypertension for there are so many types available in the market.

After a bypass operation my blood pressure is ok now although I have to consume some four or five types of pills everyday. The medication must be changed after sometimes when the effectiveness of the one given wears out, the good doctor tells me.

This time i was down with a bad cough and cold. Since it struck me towards the end of the fasting month (Ramadhan), i could not take my medicine during daytime.
I didn't go to see a doctor since it was a common c & c and I could get the known medication from the pharmacy. But come the final day of fasting I was still couging an sneezing. My participation in preparing for the festive day was minimal, in fact zilt. On the night before the last day of fasting I just managed to perform the tarawih
with lot of sneezing, coughing and sweating. With exceptional willpower and a total Fsubmission to Allah's willI I took the compulsory morning bath on Aidilfitri day and fulfilled both the special prayer followed the usual Friday prayers. But the exertion forced me to remain in bed under heavy sedation for most of today. Only for a few minutes could I join the visitors who visited us for most of the time I was snoring ( or is it snorting) away.

There's always a blessing behind every misfortune, says the al-Quran. While staying in bed both before and on the Aidilfitri day itself, I certainly learned a few things. You never get to think of what other people do towards the end of Ramadhan or on the festive day itself. This time around I had all the opportunity to do so. Looking around the village in the little time that I could manage to get out of bed, I could see how family members were returning home to their roots and cleaning the old houses in which they grew up. There was a lot of grass cutting and flower plant trimmings to be done and seeing all the urbanized family members getting the job done was a treat even for a sick old man.

Cutting the beef and chicken (all bought at the many stalls by the roadside) by the housewives,for a while reminded me of human carnivorousness. Surely the cows and the chickens, if they had any selfconsciuosness, would dread the coming of the festive days. But then Allah had allowed and in fact encouraged the sacrifice. There must pain during the sacrifice but certainly Allah had ensured that the animals don't
suffer so much. When human being killed each other is the ordeal of death suffered of the same order, I wondered.

Yesterday evening before the festive day and in the short while that I felt quite able to be on my feet in spite of the bad c & c, I helped to prepare the oil lamps to be posted along the road to our house. That's part of the old tradition rendered meaningless with the common use of electricity which becomes meaningful only if there's blackout. In the process of stepping over some fallen coconut trees I slipped and landed my bums on a tree with flailing arms. The back of one elbow was badly scraped by the rough bark of the tree and it hurt so until now. another bad luck. But what do you know? The pain took away my consciousness of the stuffy nose and sore throat which probably allowed me to perform the Magrib and Isyak at the mosque. Aha, another blessing in diguise. Yes, this c & c is probably brought upon me so that I can be more aware of the full meaning of Ramadhan, more than what I have gathered in previous years.

In that respect the hariraya this year is a blessing to me. I celebrated it with more thoughts about people, life, the world and Allah and less about having a good time for myself and family. The disability to move around and indulge in merry-making gave me an opportunitynto more soul-searching and self-analysis. Subhanallah walhamdulillah, walaillahaillallah, wallahu akbar, Allahu akbar.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

14 comments:

kaykuala said...

Akhi Norzah,
Welcome back on the blog. I'm glad everything's fine with you Akhi.

'They are all made of sterner stuff' That's what I often hear of those generation who survived sans McD, sans KFC but just healthy ulam and typical Malaysian cuisine.

abdulhalimshah said...

Akhi Norzah,
The Blessing of Syawal is in many forms and one just has to take what cometh and in your stride. Definitely your introspection of things around you is the Blessing as you had rightly pointed out. The C & C is only the excuse but the priceless lesson is the awareness of His Mercies, Munificence and all-Pervasiveness.

Get well soon. Salam.

rambomadonna said...

Dear Norzah, everyone is missing you in the blogosphere. Anyway talking about the little "misfortune" on this festive season ... the Bidayuh believe that these small little misfortunes are little payments to ward away "major" bad luck that bring sadness and despair. Buang sial kata orang.

Anyway, wishing u and your family a blessed Hari Raya, maaf zahir dan batin.

norzah said...

Akhi Kaykuala, yessiree i'm back though still a little stiff in the joints. The flu, flew away but the cough continues to cackle my throat. I don't believe i missed much this hariraya except the full taste of the delicacies. Salam mesra.

Akhi Halim, if the c& c is only an excuse to sharpen my awareness of His Mercies, Munificence and all-Pervasiveness, then let me have more of it with perhaps less severity. My only hope is that all that i managed to read from the al-Quran and hear from the Imam will stick in
my memory. The c & c can sort of cause things to become
hazy. Salam mesra.

Dear J, a little misfortune to ward off a major calamity is a
very good philosophy to help us absorb the misfortunes of life. Anyway i survived and did manage to fulfill the basic obligations imposed on the Muslims in the month of Ramadhan (hopefully). Thanks for the well-wishes from me and and family and i hope that your own family reunion in Penang was a huge success.

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norzah said...

Dear friends, the many removals above were due to a multiple printing of the same response.

maarofkassim said...

Do not doctors 'practice' medicine? I have hypertension too. At one time the doctor prescribed me 'atenolol'. My pulse rate had always been low - about 55 ppm. 'Atenolol' made it even lower and this made me lazy. The next time I visited the doctor I told her my problem. Just by touching my wrist she confirmed it and changed to another medicine 'feladipine'. This one is okay.

Al-Manar said...

Akhi Norzah

You should realise from comments above how concerned your visitors were when they sensed something was not right with you. I can only echoe their feeling.

Now that with one more Ramadhan and Hari Raya gone let us look forwards to coninue where we left, but more focussed on what is truly meaningful.

Salaam to you and family

norzah said...

Sdr Hj. Maarof, welcome to my blog anf thank you for your comment. Yes doctors do practise medicine but Allah made all of us different from each other and the same medicine can have different side-effects on different people. So we can understand if a medicine prescribed for us is not that suitable. But at least it should not cause other serious problems as is often the case today. There're cases where the side-effect caused irreverseable damage and even death. Subhanallah. Selamat Hariraya maaf lahir dan batin

norzah said...

Akhi al-Manar, thank you very much for the concern like the other kind friends. I'm quite ok now, alhamdulillah, and as you see am back on the blog. Selamat Hariraya to you and family.