Living separately again…

Having completed my puasa 6 yesterday, today I started my post-Raya house visits. Initially I was planning to start my visits on Monday, but Zalia contacted me saying that she had got all the documents ready (to apply for financial assistance for her 2 year old daughter) and asked when I could come to get them from her. She’d be heading back to her foster mom’s home next week.

Remember Zalia? The young mother who had a misunderstanding with her own mother? She was staying with her foster mother in a rented house in Ipoh while her 2 year old daughter stayed with the little girl’s grandparents. As per my posting here, I managed to send Zalia back to her parent’s home and so she was reunited with her daughter.

But when I went to visit just before Raya to deliver diapers and milk for her daughter, to my surprise, Zalia’s mother told me that Zalia had moved out to stay with her foster mother again, only this time she took her daughter along with her, and in another town. But Zalia’s mom did tell me that the two would be coming home for Raya and so I left the diapers and milk with the mother.

Today when I went to visit, I could see that the mother wasn’t happy with Zalia’s decision to stay with her foster mother. But she just simply didn’t want to say it out in front of me (she may have told Zalia straight in the face when I wasn’t around, I don’t know for sure). When Zalia went to her room for a while to get some documents, her mother complained to me, “Raya hari tu pun dia balik sini entah Raya ke berapa entah. Bukan balik sebelum Raya.”

I asked Zalia what she does at the home of her foster mother. Is she working or something? “Takde lah apa, tolong jaga mak angkat sakit.”

Hmmm… by the looks of it, I think the 2 simply couldn’t stay together in the same house. Zalia is stubborn and couldn’t stand her mother’s nagging, while her mother couldn’t stand the fact that Zalia didn’t want to listen to her, even when it’s for her own good. Zalia’s father? Well, he’s silent most of the time.

I just hope that the situation wouldn’t get back to square one when her case was first referred to me. At that time they weren’t even speaking to each other and Zalia was afraid to go home even to meet her own daughter. Now that she has taken her daughter with her, I hope Zalia will still bring the little girl to meet her grandparents and young aunts from time to time.

For the moment, since I managed to get supplies of milk & diapers for her daughter until the end of the year, I will continue to deliver the stuff to her parent’s home here in Ipoh. If Zalia wants them, she will have to go back to her parent’s home. That way I can be sure she takes the effort to go home at least once a month.

But I can’t be too sure about the situation once the last of the supplies are delivered by the end of this year…