Tosai reminds me of...

Maira wanted to have some roti canai after the girls' C0mputert0ts class on Sunday and off we went to a mamak restaurant.

I ordered tosai for myself. Misha and my friend Annie who was with us ordered the same thing too.

While chatting and waiting for our food, the little drizzle turned into heavy rain. A little while later, our food came.

In the same exact moment that the first bite of tosai lusciously dabbed in coconut chutney enters my mouth, a certain person came into my mind -- my late mother in-law, Mak.

In that split second, I had a lump in my throat.

There and then, I suddenly remembered that the last time I had tosai was in Penang when we visited her in August last year. I had some work to do in Penang and took the kids and maid to see her.

I remember the last night we were there, we had supper at a mamak restaurant near her place and of course, she had her favourite tosai. Not one, but two!

Mak was a very special woman. And strong, too.

Mak was widowed at the age of 36 when her husband died of a stroke at the age of 42.

Left with six children ranging from the age of 17 to 2, Mak was now alone and had to fend for herself, her kids and an elderly mother. Being an only child, she did not have any siblings to turn to either.

I am still in awe everytime I try to imagine how she managed everything -- being uneducated, unstreetwise and all.

But she did.

You name it, she did it. Jual kuih, jahit baju etc. After awhile she finally landed herself a stabil job as a general worker in a university in that island state. She was now a gomen employee with medical and pension benefits.

Mak never remarried, though she was very much a looker (anak mami!) and had many suitors.

"Mak takut kalau mak kawin nanti anak-anak tak dapat kasih sayang", she once said. And with remarrying, there goes her late hubby's pension (I don't know bout now, but those days if a woman remarries, she can say goodbye to her late spouse's pension -- how unfair!)

She continued to work until retirement age, though all of her children (except for Zamri who was in uni) had already made it on their own. She just didn't want to be dependent on her kids, "Mak tak mau anak-anak susah, depa pun dah ada tanggungjawab masing-masing," she would say.

Not only did she bury her husband, she also buried her fifth child in 1985 when Achik Lan was killed in a motocycle accident.

And last year, she buried yet another son, her anak manja, Zamri, my hubby (I still find it weird to call him my 'late' husband).

You could say she's been through it all.

She also saw three of her kids graduate from foreign universities and even stayed for two years in the US when my sis-in-law did her PhD in the early nineties.

Mak passed away on 27 November last year, just 9 months after her youngest son's passing. And just 10 days after she left our home to go back to Penang.

The night before she went back, she told me, "Mak ni dah tua... dah tak larat nak duduk lama-lama di KL. Mak tak saaaabaaaaaq nak balik Penang...".

Mak left us dengan mata tertutup rapat. And rezeki dia, she got to be buried beside her husband after 35 years.

Tosai, among many other things, would always remind me of Mak.