Relationships in social media era
AWAY from the contemptuous and junk corners of social media, reality strikes instantly. This is about typed words and unseen reactions versus real conversations.
This instance, Zaiton Ibrahim, 94, is talking to her youngest son. The voice is booming. Hearing aids have long been discarded for the throbbing they cause.
She has suffered the deaths of many around her, the most excruciating must have been that of her 23-year-old son in 1976. Sadness is timeless. Recently, Din Taha, 57, lost his son, a strapping 19-year-old who excelled at the Royal Military College (RMC). “I am not tall. Neither is his mother. Our son must have been ‘loaned’ to us.”
His father, an engineer, is supervising a construction upgrade of a major democratic institution in Kuala Lumpur. He takes the bus on Friday nights to be with his family in Jitra.
On that tragic night, a phone call informed him of an accident involving his son, just as he was about to board a bus in KL. It was a heart-wrenching journey. “Other passengers must have heard my sobs in phone conversations with family members.” Technology is nursing Din Taha’s grief; while fuelling it at the same time. Pictures of his son in a prominent role at a RMC parade are a click away on his phone.
After talking to Din Taha that night, this reporter returned home to consider some big questions. One is the lifelong battle of celebrating your personal space versus creating a bit of time for others. To listen. To convince grieving friends you are not going to be distracted by the phone. As if on cue, the following morning Din Taha wrote in his hostel’s WhatsApp group about his sorrow. A succinct one-liner. The more voluble friends were not about to ease their focus. That is waging an often rancorous political debate.
This week two members of the WA group left. Friendship has offered Tan Sri Ahmad Merican, who turns 95 later this year, an eternal solace. His latest WA reply to this reporter beautifully sums up his personality. “Love to meet. Lama tak jumpa! come to... lovely food court below.”
Two of your friends, born in 1961, are battling illnesses. One is not communicative having slipped into coma in 2017 after organising a major reunion. Last Sunday, over biryani, a mutual friend who is a headmaster of a Cameron Highlands school, spoke admiringly of the energy and drive of the comatosed friend in connecting friends. “He simply pops up everywhere.”
The other friend in hospital is boisterous. After a lightning visit to his hospital bed, he reminded this reporter to be a repeat visitor. So much to talk about. Just in case you think you have not rested enough, wait till you meet Mohd Akhbar Mohd Yunus, 49. He is a Grab driver in KL who lives in Melaka. Akhbar doesn’t sleep rough but he sleeps or tries to sleep in his car. He talks of a strategy to build up his earnings before returning to his family in Melaka.
Yesterday, he drove home in the morning returning to KL later in the day. Otherwise he would choose a well-lit spot perhaps in the neighbourhood of a 7-Eleven outlet to store up energy. His
son, 18, who was at a boarding school and should know soon
the outcome of career-deciding SPM exams, is his biggest
hope.
Obviously. No one sets out to let family and friends down. It is about building up the energy level to admire, appreciate and to do good.
Rashid Yusof is NST’s group editor