Sunday, September 16, 2018

Sam's first son-in-law.

Mon 17 Sep 2018.



Adam married Shiqin, Datuk Samsuddin Hasan's daughter, on Saturday at the Sime Darby Convention Centre. Last night, Sunday, was the Majestic reception. I mean, the reception at Majestic.  But the event, slightly delayed, was great.  The reception hall was great. The guests were great in their formal attire, all 700 of them fitting nicely into the classy hall.  The food was great. The polished musicians were great. Even the pauses between acts were managed greatly. But to me, all three speeches delivered at the beginning, the middle and the end of the reception were the greatest.

There were of course the facts. Adam is  Sam's first son-in-law. Seven more weddings should follow Shiqin's. Sam spent 3.2 millions on Shiqin's schooling, and for this Adam paid only 300 for the "aqad nikah". The 15-ringgit parking fee for all the guests was footed by Sam. The next 7-ringgit zakat-fitrah for Shiqin will be paid by Adam. In short, Sam is badly short-changed.

Then there was Sam's closing speech, the third and last one for the night, but the one with the punch.

Sam spared nothing, obviously, for the happiness of his daughter. He'd watched Adam from the beginning, and assured that Adam was Shiqin's choice, now gladly gives his precious daughter away, but with a proviso, smilingly given but steely cautioned, to take good care of her.

Sam came prepared with several full-scap pages of  notes, but he moved in and out of them at will. And it didn't lessen the impact of his massage, to me, and the audience. We were all listening. That, I assure you, doesn't always happen at weddings. The listening, I mean. His words were of fatherly exasperation and about jealous care for a much-loved daughter. His loss now should be Adam's gain, and combined, the new couple's happiness together should make up for the tender, loving care showered by father to daughter.

But before that the twins spoke, at two different times. At the beginning of the reception, the unmarried one spoke first. She had her notes, too, but I guess much of what she said was already written in her heart. She spoke of their love growing together, of their differences, yet  their dependence on each other, of their closeness, and now of being separate for the rest of their lives. And then she spoke of their dear departed mother who left them six years ago through illness, how she is so much missed here now, but how she, too, would have been happy with the new son-in-law. This was the emotional part of her speech, and it was shared by the audience.

When the bride spoke on stage, after the cake cutting ceremony, she carried no notes, but like her twin sister before her, her words were probably already written in her heart. She,too, spoke of the sisterly love, and now the sad separation, of the loss of a loving mother, who, again, would have been happy to see her happily married, and spoke of gratitude for the joy the wedding has brought to all concerned.

We'd decided to leave Seremban for the wedding early - at 5.30 p.m. exactly, for fear of the KL-bound Sunday evening traffic that normally occurs on weekends. But the traffic was not as bad as expected, maybe because we were early, maybe because Monday would be still a holiday. So we reached the hotel almost one hour before the appointed time. At reception's end we left, stopped at the Sg. Besi rest area, collected Auntie Ros from England Garden, and sent all three passangers back to S2, before I finally reached home at about 1.30 a.m. Monday morning, tired but happy. Happy enough that I sms'd a congratulatory message to Sam. "Great wedding" I said.


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