My uncle Rahim and Aunt Mariam

My paternal uncle Rahim is the youngest of five siblings. Reflecting on my paternal side of family of origin and with advancing years, he remains the only uncle my siblings and I have left and hence, its value and importance. He connects us to the world of our late father and his side of the family. He becomes the referral source of historical and specifically genealogical information.

Below are the pictures of my brother Azam, his wife Zah and I when we visited him in early March 2018 at his house. We were having tea and kerepok lekor.

This was the time when he talked a lot about his living sister, Mariam who is now in Palembang, Southern Sumatra. I thought she was in Jakarta but uncle Rahim corrected me.  He wanted and wished for me to join him to travel to Palembang to visit Ibu Mariam soon and that I do not wait far too long before doing so.  Uncle Rahim told me the names of my cousins, Aunt Mariam's children one after another with deep affection and love. I sensed and picked that up in his voice. God, that man's love for his family is astounding, at least to me. 

My brother Azam and his wife, Zah and daughter, Aisyah along with cousins Hamzan and Azhar and Uncle Rahim visited Aunt Mariam in December 2017. 

When Aunt Mariam and Bapak Bermawi visited us in early 1970s, I was not there to meet them. I was in Penang at a residential school. I thought I have an old picture of them all in Perupok and will post it whenever I can locate it.

It was in the middle of 1980s when I finally met Aunt Mariam for the first time. She was visiting her mother (my grandma) and sister (my Aunt Zainab) in Perupok. I was working in Kuala Lumpur and decided to drive home to Kelantan to see her. We hugged and stayed physically close throughout the visit. I could feel her love and at the same time I was wondering if she was longing for her deceased brother, my father, through me. Aunt Mariam is sandwiched between my father who is her next younger brother and Hassan, was her next older brother. Then come Aunt Zainab and Uncle Rahim.

That was the visit that I will cherish and was profoundly meaningful to me. That was the time when I was contemplating of returning to the USA the second time with serious objections from my Aunt Zainab and Uncle Rahim. To the USA off I went and the rest is history. The perspectives Aunt Mariam shared with me during that visit which will stay deep in my heart and soul. She alluded that I have to stay true to myself irrespective of what others have to say, a position I still hold very dear. She was a traveller as much as I am. She left Malaya soon after the end of the second world war and before Malaya gained her independence with her husband and son, Shahbuddin, who I met when he visited us in 1960s. When Shahbuddin and I first met, I recalled that he mistakenly thought I was uncle Rahim! During Shahbuddin's visit, I became his translator of sort whenever he conversed with  my grandma's siblings, Wok and MakCu Haji (Aunt Mariam's aunts) and other extended relatives in Perupok. Aunt Mariam's own idiosyncratic life experience and events which she went through were way too much similar to mine and hence the bond of closeness. 

These two: my uncle Rahim and Aunt Mariam, are the only two living individuals from my father's side of family (none from my mother's side of the family any longer). I want them, both Uncle Rahim and Aunt Mariam, to know how I love them and what they each mean to me.