Stories from Lunch

I just got back from lunch with my girlfriends. These are friends from school dulu ~ D, I & L. We were together in the same dorm from Form 1 right up to Form 5. We meet whenever the opportunity arises and this lunch was one of those opportune times.

Whenever we meet like this, topik perbualan will surely revolves around 3 things : 1) husbands, 2) other friends, and 3) school days. Ok, just to give a bit of a background of these ladies:

D is a Company Secretary at one of the major foreign banks in KL. She has a husband who is always very suspicious of the guys who call her eventhough these guys either 1) have been friends with her for eons, or 2) are married with children and have no other intention to speak to her other than bertanya khabar. She was one of those girls who wore kain senteng and pom-pom socks to school, very popular and had many "boyfriends". But now, she has mellowed down quite a lot. Pakai tudung, and looks just like any other middle-aged married woman. I guess marriage does that to all of us...

I is an architect. She runs her own firm. She lost her husband during a landslide some years ago which wiped out her whole house and killed some of her family members, including her mother. She now lives with her father and 3 children who survived the tragedy at the exact same spot where the old house used to be. She has not re-married (I don't think she ever will, not in the near future at least) and is happy doing what she's doing right now. She is another popular girl in school; played basketball, pandai menari & menyanyi, and had a crush on one of our band instructors when we were in Form 4 (that was a major crush, ok?!).

As for L, she's currently attached to one of the construction firms in KL. This girl was quite low profile when we were in school. Tak banyak kerenah... boyfriends pun tak ramai masa tu. But after she left for Canada, we heard so many juicy stories about her. Her strings of boyfriends ranged from Puerto Rican to Canadians. Black & white! Terror makcik tu!! She came back much later than any of us and married this very nice malay chap 10 years older than her. I think he straightened her up. They now have 3 beautiful children and lived in Sg Buluh.

We had lunch at Rain Nuddle in Pavillion. Very nice food! I'd recommend it to all who wants to bring their family / friends for Thai food.

D was telling us that her husband has been in contact with his ex-GF lately. Ok, this ex-GF was a very old GF. They knew each other even before he met D; since primary school lagi. One day, D saw several SMS sent by an unfamiliar name in her husband's HP. Our friend was not happy lah, so she asked him to remove the girl's name & phone no. from his contact list. So he did, it seemed. But last week, D's HP had some problems and she wanted to use her husband's HP to make a call. Scroll punya scroll, it turned out, the ex-GF's name was still in the contact list, but it has been altered so as to not raise any suspicion on the wife's front.

So apa lagi, our friend pun mengamuk lah. You know why? Coz the ex-GF is still not married, still single. That's a big threat, right? When our friend asked him why he still kept the number even tho he said he had deleted it, he said he kept it "..so that nanti kalau nak contact pasal reunion ke, senang tahu nombor...". Hee... Hee... I thought that was funny! They were together in PRIMARY school, ok. Any reunion that he was thinking about would most probably be his primary school's reunion. Kinda strange, isn't it? Jarang2 kita dengar orang buat reunion for primary school friends!

And this came from someone who'd get jealous everytime a guy calls his wife, or sent an e-mail to his wife, about work or other trivial matters. Tch... tch... tch.... it's so unfair.

Anyway, we were just laughing away about this. Men are so typical. When it comes to us, semua tak boleh. But when it comes to them, macam2 alasan untuk membolehkan keadaan! Letih lah nak gaduh dengan they all pasal ni... membuang boreh iyo! (bak kata orang negori sembilan)

Then I told us about her last moments with her late husband. We were complaining about our husbands' late night coffee/teh tarik outings when suddenly she said, "Let them go.... don't make a big fuss about it." Huh? Why, we asked.

She said, the night before the dreadful incident, her husband had told her that he wanted to go out and meet a friend for teh tarik. This was during bulan puasa, after terawikh. She was not very happy because she wanted to spend sometime with him. He went out anyway, despite her protest, and returned later after she had gone off to bed.

She said, when he came into the room, she heard him say "Assalamualaikum". She replied, albeit hesitantly, because she was still angry with him. Their 10-month old baby cried, and so he picked him up and sat on a chair next to the bed. They still did not speak. My friend continued sleeping and he dozed off on the chair.

At 5am, the alarm clock went off for sahur. She woke him up, but he didn't want to get up as he said he was still sleepy. My friend was pretty annoyed ~ "Tu lah, malam tadi keluar lagi, sekarang kan dah ngantuk?!" she said in her heart.

Then it happened ~ the LANDSLIDE. In a blink of an eye, the avalanche wiped out her family home and took away her husband's life. She didn't get to say goodbye, she didn't get to say sorry. He's gone ~ just like that! Just a few hours ago, he was still around, the next thing she knew, he was gone ~ pinned under a concrete pillar that was stripped down by the landslide.

No wonder when we first met her at the hospital right after the incident, she kept on telling us, "Jangan gaduh2 with your husband... always make peace. Nanti you'll regret it!" She kept on repeating the same thing. We didn't know what she meant at that time, but now we do.

After hearing that, we didn't know what to say. We felt sorry for her and at the same time, we felt how lucky we are to still have our companions. I is a very strong woman. She was 4-months pregnant when it happened, but she lost the baby eventually a few months after the incident. I think it's fated and for the better as well. I don't think she can have the baby alone because he/she will always be a reminder of the past, and it's going to be painful.

So, MrNordin, I think after this, kalau you nak pegi Nescafe tarik tengah2 malam pun, pegi lah yang. I tak marah. I tak nak menyesal di kemudian hari, macam cerita Intan. (But this general consent is renewable every 6 months, ok?)