The grassy driveway used to be barren and overrun with red ants. We used to play all sorts of fireworks there; the spinning wheel, the fountain, the kind that shoots out different coloured fireballs...and we would use the sprinklers to terrorise the ants. The neighbours opposite the road would play meriam buluh and keep us all awake well into the night with the noise. Nowadays, nobody would buy fireworks anymore, and our parents have learned to shake their heads disapprovingly at the TV showing kids with burns and scars during Eid. They grow paranoid along with the media, and us kids catch fear too easily. Even so, we still have the distant booming cry of the meriam buluh to listen to in the nights leading up to Eid.

Another sign that Eid is fast approaching is that of my dear, small, Mak Tok, carrying out large bunches of daun palas and daun kelapa out on the veranda, and the womenfolk would huddle around spinning the leaves for ketupat. They joked and talked loudly together, and laugh freely whenever one of us youngsters get our hands tangled up in the leaves. After being laughed at throughout my childhood days, I guess I gave up on learning how to make a proper ketupat shape. That's alright though, I'm content just sitting near them and looking after the new additions to the family; my cute little nieces, Asma and Aisya.

They don't recognise people very well just yet, and there are some that they will never be able to know. Maybe they will learn the faces of their family history through photographs, maybe in the gentle reminiscing of their 'Mbah. Maybe they will get the chance to learn that their late great-grandfather was a soldier in the Rejimen Askar Melayu Diraja, and that this auntie of theirs would sneak in under the metal barrier separating the soldier from his family just so she can sit on her grandfather's lap when she was just a little bit older than they are. And maybe they will learn that this auntie of theirs misses him, and wished that they had the chance to know him. Al-Fatihah to those who have left us.

Despite celebrating Eid without fail after each Ramadhan, year after year; it never feels quite the same, and most often than not, neither are the circumstances. People come and go, ties are constantly broken and renewed, to look forward is to move on; all these are signs that change is a constant. And the unpredictable nature of change can be exciting and daunting. That is probably why this is the one time of the year that every family member try their best to return to their roots, trying to hold on to the immovable past. There is comfort in numbers, and a shared history, I suppose. We just needed to know that whatever there is out there in the world, there will always be a home to go back to, and loved ones to welcome you with open arms.

Eid Mubarak everyone, and I hope you had a good one with your family and friends.