By the time I wrote this post, up until this point where youβre reading this, I have only finished Edmonton-Toronto round trip and not yet done the Edmonton-Vancouver part which should be the greatest part of the entire Via Rail experience. However, surely updates will be posted soon once I get to try that bits of the utmost Via Rail journey!
The possibly best summer in my life that I had been very much looking forward to has finally come! Iβm happy to admit that I had been very fortunate to have come and lived in Canada this year, for this year the country is celebrating its 150th birthday meaning amazing once-in-a-lifetime deals of tourism are lining up. What everyone had foreseen since last year was that the entrance to all national parks are becoming free for this entire year, but one thing that came as a great surprise was that: Via Rail offered a 150$ Canada 150 Youth Pass which means with 150$ you could basically travel to anywhere across Canada using Via Rail train service, for the entire July 2017. How cool was that?!
..this guy! π
Just yesterday, I just got recovered from one and a half week of pneumonia. This was only the second time I got sick in Edmonton. The first was a pretty mild and casual cold, but this one is the kind of a pretty serious one.
I remember spending so much on Uber just to get to the clinic, then do an x-ray, go to the pharmacies, and buy some expensive nutrition supplies just because I didn’t even have the strength to cook myself some basic food. I tried Advil for the first time, finally figured out why its name appears in lots of Hollywood movies if it’s not because of its amazing powerful effects.
Those times make me nothing but realize that being away from home sucks big time.
I talked with Bunda on the phone while she was fully awake at 2AM-ish until morning, trying to make sure that her only daughter is staying alive on the other side of the world. That daughter that had never been sick alone before, especially when it comes to high fever that lasted for a week. I almost sent myself to the emergency room because noone was even able to take care of me; I couldn’t get myself food, my bedroom was a complete mess of quarantine of virus, I didn’t dare to touch the water for anything other than brushing teeth, I couldn’t even drink it. Walking downstairs to get myself glasses of strange-flavored tea and water with lemon or honey felt like such real huge struggles. And Bunda kept texting me 24/7 to make sure that I, at least, was staying alive.
There was no typical chicken porridge that Ayah always bought me whenever I was forced to lie in bed due to catching cold or fever. There was only some ugly-tasted instant chicken soup I forced myself to make, just because I couldn’t even stand for any longer than 15 seconds, let alone cook. He wasn’t there to prepare and clean a bucket of water that I’ve always used to vomit the accumulating mucus in my throat. I did it myself, while dragging myself to the bathroom back and forth, trying not to pass out somewhere in-between. No home cooked spinach porridge or chicken soup, no going to the usual dr. Rahayu with Ayah, no Ayah or Bunda changing my damped and unsterile pillow case and linens.
There was only me and my damped eyes, realizing how sad it is to have to suffer the bad days of your life without the ones who would able to help you get through them. Thinking, “How could my friends already get married by this age? I got pneumonia and I really couldn’t think how I would not die without the help of my parents. I don’t think a husband would be of enough use.”
I wish I were sentimental enough to have the courage to tell them how much I cherish their presence, how much I’d like to be home by their sides at the very moment, how much I need their constant supplies of never-ending blessings.
“O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they have nourished me when I was young.”
Home might be a mess; people might still contradict you; it might not be the most beautiful place you know;
but it was the only place where I
was never alone.
