what a difference one bloody month makes!one month whizzed by and i'm still reeling from the culture shock of the difference this one little month just doled out to me. let's see....i am now working with Gucci (yes,GUCCI!!), training as a buyer and merchandiser.azim and i adopted two kittens (tiny, toilet-trained and tentatively named Miaona and Miaonee...idiotic yes i know but it's so coochi-coochi-coo!). my mom just got an (ahem, drum roll...!) Advanced Dip in Hotel Management (and guess who was the loving, filial firstborn child who did her final project for her?) my tubby little sister lost a bit of weight (ok that's not so Bollywood drama but one should really see her to fully comprehend my statement...) and the only heart-wrenching difference this month gave to me is that my father is no longer at home now. He has been warded at NUH because of severe and terminal complications of diabetes. Almost his whole body is swollen due to water retention which in turn is due to his kidneys, both of them, are badly damaged...almost dead organs. he is constantly in and out of the ICU as doctors find his case baffling and totally unpredicatable. once they pondered amputation for both his legs, then they decided not. then they suggested transplant, then the risk was too great. my guess is that my father is on borrowed time. i see him suffering, i see him weep, i see the glassy look in his eyes and my heart breaks. the day he asked me and my mother to bring him to the hospital, we needed to call for an ambulance for he can no longer walk. so my once-mighty father, at the still-not-elderly age of 52, is now a shrunken, bed-ridden miserable old man, a slight sliver of the garang he was. at this stage, in this situation, my mother hath forgiven him for all that he did to her...his philandering, his eventual second nuptial with another, his unjust, miserly ways of being a man, a husband and a father. even if God Almighty can forgive a man for his sins, us mere human beings can forgive each other too. anger cannot turn back time, revenge cannot undo the deed and hatred cannot unplant the seed. me? i am now numb. i feel neither sorrow nor fear of what is to come. financially, we are more than stable, my new job pays well enough and my mom is still the big-shot hotelier that she always is. emotionally, i dunno about my mom but she's so strong, so patient...such a wonderwall. all i know that inside of me, i can feel tsunamis waiting to be executed. Azim has been so wonderful and i draw my energy and inspiration from him. through all the darkness, Azim is my lightsabre. even my mother told me she feels this is the person she has been praying for to take care of me for life. for all her suffering with my father, Azim is her saving grace for he will give me the good married life she did not have. i didn't have to have her tell me that. i knew he was my warm flask of milk in a cold wintery night all along. he is the only one who noticed my favourite flowers are lilies (i didn't even tell him that! i didnt tell anyone!), he knows what i really like and my pet peeves, he knows whether my tantrums are due to a pending period or just simply me being bitchy, he remembers almost everything about me! once again, I thank God for him.Thanks to him, look at me now and i look my normal self....heck a lot of times i feel normal....happy, sappy,mushy, crazy...but look at me again, closely, and you see the adult Raihan, slowly armouring herself to face the battle that is to begin. where i capture the castle, i'll save the dreams. -Raihan@2am,17thJuly2003