And yet we seek.

adakah perasaaan benci ini sebenarnya cinta
yang masih bersemadi untukmu
dan sebenarnya ku mengharapkan
di sebalik senyuman mu itu
kau juga merindui aku

- Yuna’s “Dan Sebenarnya” -

“I’m feeling a little under the weather…and I need to be in Sabah next week..so..”

“So, you need to be Superman?’

Cue loud laughter.

“No, but close enough”

“No one can make you become Superman”

No one indeed.

So I walked away with tablets, nasal spray and gargle medicine.

When I was young, I used to read the “Ramona” series. Have you read them? They were really cute books, depicting the life of Ramona, who’s a precocious middle child, with mini adventures of her own.

Anyhoo, one day Ramona kinda caught a flu bug. Not unlike the one I’m having right now. Her temperature rose, she got sweaty and feverish, and became really restless. Her mom was away in the hospital, delivering her younger baby brother (or was it sister? I can’t really remember right now). So, she ambled throughout the day feeling worse and worse, until her dad came back from the hospital, took one look at her and whisked her off to see their doctor.

So, the doc did the necessary: checked her temperature, throat, eyes, ears, the works. Then he wrote a prescription. When her dad took a look at the prescription, he suddenly picked her up and gave her the biggest hug and an extra squeeze, topped off with a huge kiss.

And she suddenly felt better. Loads better.

It turns out that she was just experiencing a lack of attention, due to her mom being away in the hospital, and that the whole family was involved in the childbirth. It took just a cuddle from that one person to make her feel whole again.

I sure could use one right now.

***

“A little boy asked his mother, "Why are you crying?" "Because I'm a woman," she told him.

"I don't understand," he said. His Mom just hugged him and said, "And you never will."

Later the little boy asked his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?"

"All women cry for no reason," was all his dad could say.

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.

Finally he asked God. He said, "God, why do women cry so easily?"

God said:

" When I made the woman she had to be special.
I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort.

I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children.

I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining.

I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.

I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.

I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.

And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed."

"You see my son," said God, "the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides."

Maybe, that’s why.