It’s my birthday…again? Mum asked in jest. The word “jest” (1) became or was made quite popular when two past politicians (they still think they are or behave as though they are [said in jest]) used it to make fun of statements and reports made by media, for and against them.

Jeannie, the Batik Influencer and my wife; Laura (our, Jeannie and mine) daughter; Praga, Laura’s fiancé and me (yours truly, the Hatted Writer); were up in Klang, last morning (Saturday), to visit mum and dad, since Praga could not make it for this evening’s “do”.

So, it’s Sunday evening. Mum, dad, their children and their families got together to celebrate mum’s 87th birthday. We take birthdays and anniversaries as gifts and blessings. Besides celebrating mum’s birthday, we celebrated dad’s & Mum’s 68th wedding anniversary. Mum related a story that when she was very young, a couple friends of theirs celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. At that time, 25 years was such an achievement not to be taken lightly. “And the couple looked old / aged”, she said. Now, she is celebrating 68th with dad, and 25 just does not look nor seem so long after all.

It was Father’s Day, too, where we fathers were wished “Happy Father’s Day!” A triple celebration.

One of the biggest highlights of the evening was that we all came together. We are more often than not, caught up with multiple things and events on each of our personal calendars, to manage to pull this event off. Even then, we still had some of the family members missing from today because of their tight schedules.

We gathered around the table, where Malcolm said a special blessing for mum, especially for continued good health. Then, for the food. The food was as usual, plentiful. It was a combination of Asian and western food. Everyone brought something different. Though there was a lot of food, including desserts; Alana got tempted for ice-cream potong (3) and ordered it with Grab delivery services.

When we had our fill with dinner, we moved over to the living room, where everyone was relaxed, chilling out and chatting on many subjects; just catching up and bring each other up to speed with their daily going-ons.

The bir-ther-day (how some locals here still pronounce “birthday” in a unique way) was soon readied for the birthday song. However, not before pit-cher (another Malaysian local pronounced English word, “picture”) taking session. Jeannie organized this quick session. Quick because we all have become picture-taking professionals, experts and veterans. Once, the multitudes of pictures were taken from several smartphones, the long, single candle on the cake was lighted and we sang “Happy Birthday” to mum. We sang in the right key and timing – music is a gift we inherited from dad and mum.

We stayed on for the cake and also the ice-cream potong and continued crisscrossing chats with each other (most of us did that). Somehow, there never seems to be enough time to say all that we want to say as it was soon time to call it a night.. The three celebrations of Mum’s 87th birthday, Dad’s & Mum’s 68th wedding anniversary and Father’s Day does not only mark the end of the year that has gone past, but ushers in the “new year” for each of these events with an abundance of love, joy and experiences to come.

NOTES:
Photographs are courtesy of Sarah and Kheng.

1. “Jest” means a thing said or done for amusement; a joke.
2. “Do” can also means party, celebration, reception, bash, gala, fête, shindig, fete, function, affair, blowout, dance, blast, ball, occasion, get-together, binge, fund-raiser, benefit, formal.
3. Potong means “cut” in Malay, referring to rectangular popsicles that are cut into portions from a bigger block. Made of coconut milk, skimmed milk, corn starch and sugar as basic ingredients, they fused it with flavours such as yam, durian and the most popular, red bean. makansutra.com