Family Tragedy

For my birthday last month, I received quite a lot of vouchers - T1mes Bookshop voucher, Le0nard Drake's voucher for free facial (yummy!) and also MPH vouchers.

Except for MPH vouchers, the rest I've fully utilise it. Did a lovely gamma facial...and also shopped at T1mes, Kay Ell C-C. Two books that I bought are these:-

I am currently reading the first one - The Memory Keeper's Daughter. I am half way done and like any other good books, it's pretty hard for me to put it down. It is a lovely book written by Kim Edwards (is this the first book she wrote?) about a doctor who found that one of his newborn twins has Down Syndrome and could not accept it. So he gave it away to the care of the nurse-in-charge that night and lied to his wife that their daughter died. The guilt seemed to be haunting him and that somewhat has affect on her relationship with his wife. Her wife, on the other hand, could not accept the fact that her daughter died and felt depressed. She did her best to overcome her feeling, like wanting a new baby, but his husband on the other hand refused to have another one as he's afraid that the baby will turn out to be just like his daughter. The whole situation has slowly eaten up the family institution and torn the family apart.

Yeah, basically the story revolves around guilt and grief, and how in another part of the world, the daughter grew up just fine. Like I say, I haven't finish reading the book (so don't u dare tell me the ending if you have read it..hehe) so I don't know how the family cope with the situation or whether they solve the problem or not.

But what keeps me thinking while reading this book is how a tragedy could affect a good and strong family relationship. What if the girl actually died? Would the same situation happen? I mean, of course, if the girl really died than tak jadik cerita pulak. But yeah, what if that happen? I read somewhere that it took on average of two years for a family to recover from a family tragedy. In the span of two years, anything could happen. You could be mentally affected and never actually recover. You might be a divorcee cause you no longer serve as a functioning wife to your husband so he left you for good. Your kids might be neglected and can grow up to be "sampah masyarakat".

Or otherwise, you could have a stronger family bond. This misfortune ties the bond together. Family member stand up for each other.

I mean, personally I think it all depends on your "kekuatan iman". Of how we accept the qada' and qadar. Of course, it is easier said than done. I'm just praying that nothing bad is going to happen in my family that might affect our relationship...