Staying overseas was never easy, they say (though I don’t really feel the pain because I was too busy playing with my dolls). Malaysians or Asians would always feel glad when the meet people of the same region and this made them to get connected with each other. Just like any other students, Abah made a lot of friends while he was at the university, while Mama took great care of the four of us (it was only four during that time) at home.
The repetition of ‘Maryam' in the title of this blog (back then I wish it was my book) does not only signifies that it IS my blog, but it actually refers to other few Maryams whom I met in life, especially in UK. The first Maryam would of course be me- Maryam A’dilla. The second Maryam is a friend of Mama who is a Singaporean whom we met in UK and the third Maryam is a family friend who was also my personal language teacher when I first got in one of the schools in UK ( I didn’t speak much of English before we flew to UK, that’s why I needed help of others). These are the three authentic primary people in title.
Yet, there are few more Maryams whom I met in life such as a friend who transferred to my school when I was in standard 6. Owh..I hated the fact that she has almost the same name as mine. Her name is spelled “MARIAM” while mine is “MARYAM”. It’s a homonym to my name (with "I" not "Y"). I hated it so much (ok, not that much) because..because when there are two people with the same name, the probability of getting confuse gets higher. For instance, a teacher may be calling the other Maryam with ‘Maryam’ yet I was the one who answered. Don’t you think it’s a shame when people are calling the other person, yet you ‘think’ its you???
Moving on to another Maryam is my beautiful young sister, she’s 10 now. Though we share the same initial name, yet I have never cared… simply because she’s my sister. We would be sharing the initial till death at home, yet there was not even an event where we would be confused with our names. Why? Because nobody at home calls us with Maryam, they call us by our second name which are A’dilla and A’fwa.
Along the journey of growing up, I have come to notice one significant person called by the name of Maryam as well. Her name is recorded in the Muslim history and is repeatedly mentioned in the Quran, and even named as of the surahs- Maryam the mother of Isa. This lady inspires me to be a better person, knowing that she faced challenges which are harder than mine. InshaAllah, I will write about her in one of my entries.
There you go. The Maryams in my life. =)