TRUE TALES TO INSPIRE
Stories For Our Children aims to inspire children and young parents with riveting real life stories, writes Putri Zanina
IT’S a collection of gripping real life stories by 19 writers that will entice readers to ponder about their own life, their parents, grandparents, children and all the people that matter in their lives.
Stories For Our Children is a work of love by writers who want to share their own experiences and to impart beneficial knowledge and good values in life. They have come together in a loose networking group called The Writers Group, which is open to both novice and established writers. There are now more than 20
writers in this group.
Friends Yasmin Gan Abdullah and Dr Safiah Osman are instrumental in forming the group. It all started last year when Dr Safiah invited family members and friends to contribute stories to the first book, Stories Of Love And Compassion. Through word of mouth, even people whom she didn’t even know started contributing.
Today, she and these strangers have become friends.
Stories For Our Children, released recently, is the group’s second book project. Yasmin and Dr Safiah each wrote two stories for the book; there are 27 stories altogether.
The other writers are Abdul Rasheed Jalaludin, Aliza Sharina Ahmad Ghiti, Hajar Alias, Halimahtun Khalid, Harison Ahmad, Khairiah Ahmad, Khairiyah Mohd Ghazalli, Kalsom Taib, Kamarudin Abd Kadir, Martin Helander, Noorshin Ng Abdullah, Putri Zanina Megat Zainuddin, Rafeah Bahar Rasip, Rahimah Haji Ahmad, Rohana Zubir, Zawiyah Baba and Zuraidah Omar. Some of them are award-winning writers, such as Datin Kalsom Taib, the co-author of Johor Pal
ate: Tanjung Puteri Recipes that won the Best Culinary Heritage Book award at the Gourmand World Cookbook awards in China in May this year, and Harison Ahmad, a novelist who uses the pen name Sona Mael, winner of the top prize in the fiction category of Popular-The Star Readers’ Choice Awards 2016 for her novel Don’t Forget To Remember.
Their stories are infused with values, personal journeys and lessons, and inter- twined with inter-generational, cultural and religious understanding.
BOOK FOR CHARITY
A freelance publishing services consultant, Yasmin, who co-ordinated the book project, shares: “In deciding the theme for the book, all the writers unanimously agreed that there needed to be some form of guidance on parenting and family values for our younger generation of parents, amongst them our own children.”
She stresses that a beautiful aspect of the book project is that everybody involved in it does it for charity and are driven by the common aim of sharing beneficial knowledge with society.
“They wanted to be part of a charity drive to raise money through the book sales to help the needy,” she says, adding that Yayasan Rosni Noor, a non-profit organisation, published the book as a form of sadaqatul jariyah for ongoing charity projects.
The 216-page book has Islamic underpinnings with inspirational quotes as well as verses from the Quran and the sayings of Prophet Muhammad. The values imparted are, however, universal.
Yasmin wrote Our Children — Our Responsibility, and The Inevitable. The latter is about death and the preparation for the afterlife, which makes a fitting finale for the book. She says: “Regardless of our race or religion, the inevitable is that all of us can’t escape death.”
In her story, she recounted the sudden death of her foster sister in 2012. That same year, she also lost two other beloved family members. Their deaths set her thinking about how the inevitable could happen when we least expect it.
“The book is beneficial reading to all. Many of the stories relate to the Quran. It states that with every hardship, there’s ease. With ease, there’s calmness in life. We hope the young can derive values and experiences from each story and take them positively,” says Yasmin, coauthor of the book, Hajj — The Humbling
Journey (2011). TRUE LOVE STORY One of the more heart-warming stories is Love Blossomed At Kiwanis by Dr Safiah, who served the Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, and also the Faculty of Education, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Tanjung Malim, Perak, before she retired in 2004.
It’s the true story of Azuan, who had to be a father and mother to his three daughters after his wife succumbed to Systemic lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease. The youngest, only 2, is a Down’s Syndrome child.
Azuan felt bitter when childcare centres rejected his appeals to take in his special child, until one day he came to know about the Kiwanis Down Syndrome Foundation. There he met Ida, a single mother with four children, the youngest a daughter aged 4, with Down’s Syndrome. Before long, love blossomed and they married. Now their lives are richer and more fulfilled than ever before.
Since she retired, Dr Safiah has written two books — Let Us Remember Allah For The Wonder Of His Creation (2009) and Let Us Remember Allah For The Gift Of Love In Our Hearts (2012). She also co-authored a children’s book called Tikus Bandar Dan Tikus Desa (City Mouse And Country Mouse), published this year.
A TRUST TO UPHOLD
Homemaker and mother of three, Aliza Sharina Ahmad Ghiti, 36, is the youngest in the Writers Group. A former accountant, she left her job after the birth of her third child, now 18 months. The older two are 5 and 7.
Her second child, a boy, suffers an abnormality called Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency which affects male infants. The absence of G6PD can cause red cells to rupture, resulting in anaemia and jaundice in the early weeks of life. If not diagnosed and treated promptly, it can lead to brain damage.
She was distraught about her son’s condition but she knew that this son, and her two other children, are Allah’s amanah to her. For the book, this firsttime writer wrote Children: Our Amanah. Amanah is an Arabic term which means fulfilling or upholding trust, a topic she chose to help build greater understanding of the concept of children being our amanah. She also wanted to increase awareness of G6PD and how to deal with this hereditary disease. Her younger brother had also suffered from it. Her story contains the details of how her mother took care of her brother.
GENERATIONAL BOND
If Aliza is a novice, retired professor Dr Martin Erik Gustav Helander is an established author of seven books, most of which relate to his profession, Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics. The certified human factors professional holds a PhD from Chalmers University, Sweden.
The Green Chair is the title of Helander’s tale for Stories For Our
Children. The 72-year-old SwedishMuslim author says the green chair symbolises his close relationship with his father-in-law, Datuk Mohd Khalid Sahol, 93.
He says: “The green chair joins us together in the masjid, especially for prayers on Friday, Ramadan, and Hari Raya. Ramadan especially brings me closer to Bah (father) when I become his errand boy and I take my responsibility seriously, including finding the green chair.”
At first, he found Bah’s fascination with the green chair in the masjid incomprehensible. He’d pondered if the colour green provided a semantic meaning linked to Islam. It doesn’t.
He eventually understood Bah’s obsession with it. It reflects Bah’s character as a man of principles, a perfectionist and a disciplinarian. “Things must be set in the order he has determined,” says Helander about his Bah, who retired as the director general of Customs in 1978.
He hopes that the young who read his story can learn about the bonding of generations. “They can also learn about the importance of extending help and support to someone elderly or older than them. It’s a simple message,” he says.
MOTHER’S LOVE
Helander’s wife, Dr Halimahtun Mohd Khalid, a human factors consultant, wrote Tapestry Of Love, which focuses on two persons, her late mother and her late eldest sister who were very close to her.
“My mother confided in me and sought support over my sister, Zainab, who needed attention as she suffered from attention deficit syndrome. Telling their stories revealed an intriguing bond between mother and daughter, and how I was torn between the two in a state of helplessness.”
Her sister’s tantrums came in many forms, often uncontrollable. Zainab’s illness grew in magnitude as she aged but her mother, Datin Maznah Pendek, took it all in her stride. Her patience perhaps reached the ultimate when she had to battle cancer at a late age. Even on her deathbed, Maznah had a special place in her heart for Zainab. This motherly bond and love were exemplary, which Zainab unfortunately, was unable to grasp.
Says Halimahtun: “Caring for a sick child is an uphill battle for any parent, particularly when the illness isn’t well documented. Because of true motherly love, a child isn’t neglected or abandoned. The young can learn about sacrifices and hope, patience and perseverance, and above all, about genuine love and care. The challenges offer them an insight into parenting skills that one may nurture from a young age.”
Together, the writers hope that their stories offer something for everyone, perhaps, a lesson, a strong value of filial piety, a reminder or just a hope for the present and the future.