*This was written early July*

At this moment, I’m writing this for my own keepsake. I am still not sure whether or not I’ll publish this. I would really love to share this, but deep down ada sikit rasa takut. Takut dalam keseronokan nak berkongsi tu, terselit unsur2 takbur dan riak. Nauzubillah. When I asked Shahril about this, Shahril kata, tunggu dah balik nanti, baruu tulis pasal ni. So that’s what I’m going to do. Tulis sekarang, since my memory is short termed.. and when we come back, InsyaAllah, will publish this.

Let me just begin by saying this: Allah surely knows best and at times, He works in mysterious ways.

A couple of months ago, I was feeling extremely down. Career-wise that is. After a few years of waiting, I was not among those who were promoted at work. During 8 years of my service with the company, I have only been promoted once and that was  almost 5 years ago. With the change of subsidiary, different job scope altogether from the previous one, the newly obtained professional certification, I honestly thought I was coping excellently and have been doing it right. At least good enough. So when I did not get it for reasons I find hard to accept, I was crushed.

This, coupled with the miscarriage in March brought me to the lowest point in life I’ve ever been.

One day, sometime in May, Shahril came home and told me that his boss (let’s call him En.D) is sending us both for Umrah.

Alhamdulillah. Sayunya perasaan saya masa tu, memang tak boleh nak digambarkan dengan kata2. Rasanya, tak terkumpul segala obstacles in life for us to be rewarded sebesar ni. Truly when He closes one door, He surely opens another.

Maka yang mana satu di antara nikmat-nikmat Tuhan kamu, yang kamu hendak dustakan?  - Ar-Rahman

Finally, on June 27th we were given the confirmed date. Exactly 2 weeks after that date we would be leaving.

I would be lying if I say all I felt was excitement. The truth is, other feelings were so overwhelming that I was beginning to worry about not feeling as excited as I thought I should be. Does this make any sense? Although we knew we were going, it wasn’t until that Monday (when we got the confirmation) that we felt we were really going. That it was for real. (Maybe I should say ‘I’ here, instead of ‘we’ as Shahril was as calm as always. :P)

Next: Kids’ reactions to the news.