THIS Eid is unprecedented as we are not just social-distancing ourselves from anyone we meet, but we are also being distanced from souls we truly miss and love.

I am not lying that I had never celebrated Eid without my mother being with me.

Even though I was a five-year boarding-school kid, whenever raya came, I would always be with my father and mother until the former called to meet his Creator 10 years ago.

My mother whom I call “Mak”, despite my marital status turned “married” last two years, would celebrate raya with me and the rest of my siblings without missing her traditionally-cooked rendang.

But this year, because of the COVID-19 and its movement control, Eid is much different that we could not kiss our mother’s hands because common people like us are disallowed from interstate-travelling.

When I wrote this expression of thought, I was having a cup of Long Black coffee at a coffee shop in Pandan after the final iftar of the Ramadan, but from what I personally felt, it didn’t seem that I was in the night of the Eid.

It was just an usual night when everyone went out and hung with friends as if Eid is nothing but just a normal day for human beings to resume their normal lives after being home-caged for about two months with a mask half-covered their faces.

Not everyone puts a mask on his face as equal to not everyone misses what we miss.

For those who have lost their both parents, scenarios they face may be different to those, like me, who still at least have a mother who would answer my call whenever her phone rings with my name appears on the screen.

No one has predicted that our life would be this ‘rare’. Coronavirus can’t be seen like a black-magic that has been ‘traditional’ to some dark-hearted Malays who can’t sleep at night after knowing that their neighbour drives a new foreign-made car with his wife just promoted to be a new CFO.

I had never dreamed to be having an unpleasant life like this where living afar from the beloved human being we really love since the very first day we were born into this earth is a bitterness we need to face.

A mother’s love to her children is irreplaceable so is our love to her. Being unable to closely see her face in this Eid won’t never fade the unexpressed loves of ours to her.

May Allah always protect our mothers and grant them with immortal blessings so that their journey to the Jannah is smoothened.

Eid Mubarak.

* Amerul Azry Abdul Aziz is an independent writer who now views politics as something that can be researched.