Climbing was a
part of my life when I was at university. Unfortunately, on my parents’ mind,
climbing was the most ridiculous thing I had ever done. My (late) Mom always
said, “Stop it or I’ll ask the university to send you back home. You make me
get heart attack soon!”
And Dad said, “Please do something
more useful than leaving your lecture every Saturday!” (umm, I often escaped
from the class on Saturday to climb ;-p).
For the first time of my life, I
thanked God that I was a black sheep of the family. Simply I didn’t pay any
attention to what my parents said. Lucky for me, I lived thousands miles away
from my parents so they couldn’t do anything more than giving me their words on
the phone. And I did the same. A minute before I went for climbing session, I always
called them saying, “Mom, Dad, I’m on my way to climb. Wish me luck, okay? I
love you.” Before they could reply, I ended my call.
It was really hard times for me. At
one side I enjoyed my life but on the other side I felt sorry for my parents.
One day, when I was climbing the rock wall of Lembah Kera, I remembered my Mom.
It happened suddenly and made me miss her so much. On my mind I saw her sitting
in our living room. In her hands were photographs of my last climbing I sent to
her. She smiled but her tears rolling down on her face.
I slipped a chox hurriedly to the
crack, set the safety rope and stopped climbing. Slowly I started to cry. I didn’t know how
long I hung up there crying. All I can remember was my belayer friend shouted below
asking me if I was okay. One of my climber friends then climbed to me.
“It’s okay. Come on, let’s go down,”
said he.
As we reached the ground, I sat
quiet wiping remain tears away from my face. None of my friends tried to speak.
They already knew exactly what happened to me. After ten minutes passed in
silence, Didi, my closest climber friend came to me. He sat next to me and
softly handed me a green old carabiner.
“What is it?” I gazed at him.
“It’s my lucky carabiner. I don’t
know if it will work on you but I want you to keep it.” He replied.
I smiled saying, “Hey, I am a
muslim. I shouldn’t believe in that superstitious thing.”
He shrugged his wide shoulders.
“Alright, I see. Then, would you
keep it to remind you of this day? I mean, to remind you of the day you were
crying up there?”
I couldn’t help myself from
laughing. I whacked his arm using my black bandanna. “What do you mean?”
“It’s simple. Just want you to know
that there’s no one can stop you unless you permit them to do it. Do you see
what I mean?”
He left me alone with his old green
carabiner in my hands. I understood what he said. Two months later, something
wonderful happened to me. The same as always, I called my parents a moment
before I went for climbing. Before I ended the call, I heard my Mom said,
“Please promise us you’ll be careful there, Kid. We always pray for you
everywhere you go. So, take care of yourself for us, okay?”
That was the day I found my freedom.
I knew what I want and no one can stop me. But, please don’t think that it
happened because of Didi’s green old carabiner. Nope. I thought it was because
my parents got bored of what I said on the phone repeatedly. They needed to say
something at last.
Nowadays, that old green carabiner
is hanging on my bedroom’s door. Everytime I miss Didi, I just look at my door
and … voila!! I find him again inside my mind ^_^
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