Cool Mum Super Dad

June 16^th 2002.

I got a letter today, neatly tucked in between the sheets of my writing book.  ‘Sealed with love!’ it declared on the reverse.

Dear Ummi, it began with the familiar slant of my 11-year-old daughter’s handwriting.

I’m writing to you because of what I read in an article called ‘My Daughter, My Friend.’

I think it’s important for friends to express their feelings. I thought of writing to you by e-mail but I was afraid Ayah might read it. It’s not that I don’t want him to read it, but I personally think it’s a daughter to mum thing.

It occurred to me that perhaps a good way to communicate with a mother of six is through letters. With letters, you can read them at your own personal time. I mean, if I wanted to talk to you privately, my brothers would come bursting in after a few seconds. I know you need to give attention to them, too and I understand that.

Ummi,

If there’s one of those long chats you want to talk about with me, I’d be happy if you’d write with letters [sic].

Lots of love,

Alia.

P/S. Please make this letter thing a secret. Write to me often!

Dearest Alia, I wrote back.

When our things arrived from Oman a month ago, I anxiously searched for two plastic bags, one white and the other, yellow. You see, these were, and still are, the bags that contain some of my most prized possessions.

All of them were handmade. A Welcome Home card for Ayah that you and your brothers made to greet him when he got home from a trip abroad; A Thank You note to me and Ayah for ‘cooking, loving, appreciating, caring and for simply being the best Mum and Dad in the whole wide world’ … and many more.

To this collection I carefully added your letter, slipping it in next to the Welcome Home card. Your letter now sits snug and warm in the company of the many notes and messages in the bag, just as warm as my heart feels the minute I read your letter.

Communicating by letters, I agree, is one of the best things to happen between the two of us.

Keep writing!

Lo and behold, another neatly folded letter popped up the moment I opened my writing book that very same evening.

Dear Ummi,

I’m really glad you discovered my letter the same day I wrote to you. I have actually noticed how often you opened your writing book and that gave me the idea of placing it there.

Love,

Alia

Geez, I thought. Life must be hard if you are stuck in the middle with two big brothers hovering above and three little brothers clamouring for Mum’s attention.

For the next few years, we hardly wrote to each other.  She was caught up in her studies and friends and I was content with chats on the sofa or in the privacy of her room.

Then I came across the letters above and decided to scribble a brief note.

Alia dear, I wrote.

Remember the days when we were writing to each other? That was just a few years ago, when you were not yet a teenager (not a full-fledged one anyway)! Do you think we should start writing to each other once again?

Ummi dearest, she wrote back.

Being the only girl hardly bothers me now as I get a room all on my own (he he … )! It is true that my brothers seemed to do a lot of boyish stuff a long time ago, but I like it now. It’s like, we complement each other. Anyway, they all treat me really well and I’m proud to be their sister.

At times, though, it does put me in weird situations, like when we visit someone we are not familiar with and my brothers start talking boys’ stuff …

Love,

Alia

[NOTE: Excerpt from the book COOL MUM SUPER DAD, pages 100 – 103].