Men from the Boys, Selamat Hari Raya

Yeay, Selamat Hari Raya to everybody. When others complaining raya is not for them anymore, raya never been too lame nor too boring for me, I LIKE RAYA! Haha. Well, after a week, raya is okay and good. Still got some duit raya, nothing different from the past. For those who think that their age affect their raya mood then I'm sorry, you just did not know how to enjoy your raya.

During this raya also I had finished a novel from my no.1 author, Tony Parson. The book is ‘Men From the Boys’. Well the novel is the sequel to the ‘Man and Boy’ and ‘Man and Wife’ which I’ve read like 5 years ago. So as usual, Tony Parson really writes about men’s life, about our (men) challenges to face the reality in relationship, in our job, in parenting and everything about our past and of course, I like it and I take his story as very true.

Spoiler Alert!! (Been a while since my very last review on novels, I’ll try)

Well in this book, Harry the main character of the story is a divorcee and has a son from the previous marriage and now living with a new wife with a step daughter from the wife and a new daughter of theirs. And I pictured Harry as a loser in marriage and parenting. Since the book is about the relationship between men and boys, between father and son here I would like to focus on the son, Pat 15 years old. Both Pat and Harry were in hard times driven from various factors such as Pat’s mother, the school, the Pat’s growing up stuff and Harry is jobless has putted his marriage under strain his family is isolating him.

Well Harry’s situation can be seen as the worst situation of any father in this world want to be into. He is jobless, his second marriage is ruining, his son hates him and the worst is he missed his dead parents. And Tony Parson successfully create a character which helps Harry to overcome this problem and helps Harry see this life correctly and I don’t want to spoil more, Harry manage to regain his family’s trust back. Who is the character which helps him, you read it by your own effort lah.

And being a man now, though I celebrate raya like a boy, I knew that life is not about enjoying at all times. Sometimes I take my parents’ feeling so easily. There are several times, many times actually I failed them and sometimes I did not have that guilty feeling about it though I know I am guilty, but the feelings were not straight from the heart. Harry in the story has many things that he regretted about his dead parents and I too has many things that I’ve regretted. And in this raya luckily we have that tradition of seeking forgiveness from everybody especially from our parents. And after a week of Syawal, still I didn’t do that ‘forgiveness hunting’ from my parents. Am I a sinner? I hope not. Well raya like a boy la kan?

After a man dies, he leaves everything in this world except 3 things. These things will help him gain him pahala (rewards in religion) when he dies. That would be

1. His usable knowledge and being used until the afterworld.

2. His charity during his life

3. His children who will always doing good kinds towards others and who will always pray for their parent’s peacefulness.

So for those who have lost either their mother or father or both, Islam teaches us to always pray for their peaceful at ‘there’ and all of our kind doings will also be rewarded to our parents. Al-Fatihah~

And for everybody out there who knows me, Selamat Hari Raya. I seek for everybody’s forgiveness and of course, yours too had been forgiven, don’t worry, lol.