In The Shadows

All this while I have been hiding behind the shadows. Its not that I prefer that way, maybe I'm just left with no other choices. Somebody might tell me that's bullshit, but its true.

Shadows that I'm mentioning here is the shadows of my family. With lots of reputation they had made in the past way long before I was even born, the expectations of relatives of me is high. What with my father, whose long known as a great Commanding Officer in the army, and lots of people respect him, ever since he was a child. He was the second son in the family, yet so many depended on him as the head of family. And so it happen, everywhere I go with my dad to meet with some of his many friends all over Malaysia, I can sense people observing me with great curiosity to see whether I posseses some of my father's charm.

The same goes with my sibling. My oldest sister, went overseas to US, and right now, she is pursuing a Master scholarship and currently she got 3.89 for her GPA. My second sister, she also got overseas offer, but she turned it down cause she really wanted to go to UM. At that time, such a decision is considered irrational, but she still pulled it off and surprising everyone along the way. My only brother, he's the only one who got to go to UK, and decided to stay there for about 10 years or so, alone without anybody helping. And my last sister, she went to Warwick just right after SPM under a special program because she's one of the very little people that got straight A's in her SPM, or something. That's a rare result at that time.

With so much succes story made even before I was even born, orang kampung had always expected the same gigantic over the edge success story. This was acknowledged by me since I was very little since my dad told me everything about my family.

Yet, I never knew the real truth, until right now.

Now that I know that I was a slow baby. They told me that I only started making out a word, or bercakap only when I was about 5 years old. For a baby, that's way too late for a baby to start saying words like mama or dada or something like that. And I'm also such a crybaby at that time, I couldn't ever be separated from my parents, as proven when they go to Mekkah when I was only 10 years old. I cried like hell, when others around my age can already cope with the idea of being separated with their parents.

This lead the orang kampung to think of me of a cacat of some sort, I'm a black sheep in the family.

No wonder they are so nice to me back then, those orang kampung. They always talk to me nicely, and always back me on whenever I had a fight with my cousins. They practically gave me anything I could've ever ask for. All those years I played along thinking that they truly care about me or some sort. Never had I knew that all those kindness is because they thought that I'm some cacat kid that can't depend on himself in life.

How I have been fooled, how I have let myself be treated as the weak sucker in the family.

I don't know whether the opinion of those orang kampung had affected how my family treated me. Looking back, I can't deny the facts that they love me and trusted me all the same as my siblings. But somehow I have this weird hunch that somehow those orang kampung had influenced them into thinking that I'm really some cacat kid.

I can still remember countless time my father called me bodoh, or bangang just because I can't do something really simple or messed something up. I remembered those looks in his unbelieving eyes, as if I'm not his son, the son that inherits his intelligence. And my sisters always nagged to me when I took something lightly, as if I'm somebody real stupid. It's not that I can't do something right after all, but still they will look at me as I'm not capable of doing anything worth of being called their little brother. Yeah, after all, they are the ones that went to overseas, and here I am, the one orang kampung described as a cacat kid.

Syukur selamanya and Alhamdulillah for my mom. She was always the one who held me when I cried alone. She was the one who put me in bed when I couldn't sleep when the calling bodoh from my dad was ringing inside my head. She was the one who gave me support, and never raised her voice to me.

All this negativeness and the shadows shadowing me, has turned me into the shy guy with no self-esteem left in him that I am. I can still remember when I was still in school back then, how I think it was useless to study hard to get good results, eventhough the subjects is real easy to understand and all I need to do is revise, when even your own father said that you are stupid? I don't care if the orang kampung said that to me...

...I don't FUCKING care if others said that to me, but MY OWN DAD?...

I was at the point where I couldn't care less anymore. I failed, who the hell cares? Back then I was far away from my family when I was feeling this, so I really don't care. I became emotional, I got mad easily and I simply shouted at people who annoys me even the slightest bit. I was left alone with no mum at sight to help me hear my cries, and no friends or elders to talk to. And finally I was there, I was at some point of thinking to kill myself.

Nauzibillahhiminzalik. It didn't happen, and I prays to Allah everyday that the thought will never crosses my mind again.

I was given a second chance. I went to MJSC Beseri by chance, and for the first time, I went somewhere far away to give myself a break. There, I got more exposure to the teaching of Islam and I learned a lot of thing, including my own mistakes and fault of the part. And being far away from home made me realize that my families loves me very much, no matter who I am or what I do, cause I'm me, and I'm part of the family. Gathering all my thoughts, I tried to make amends for all the damages I had done either to myself or to my family, and change myself for the better.

Each time I learned more about myself and my past, I felt as I mature every single time it happens. But after so many of it, I learned that I'm still very young, and I still lacks the experience of life. But I still had a long way to go, to make myself better, and plus, I'm not done bertaubat yet.

Alhamdulillah, I got to further my studies and beat the expectations of the orang kampung. To them, I'm no longer the cacat kid, and finally they started to see me as who I really am. Remember, I'm Ahmad Ariffuddin Yusof. I'm not gonna be somebody's son, or somebody's little brother, I am me. I will be remembered for who I am, not for who my family is.


There, I finally let it all out. It felt great