Coconut Oil

There were days, every morning when I wake up my little angel to get ready for school, I will lay awake in bed for a minute longer, while my mind will roll back to moments like these when I will be awoken very early in the morning ………………….. very early was like dawn break for me, around 0500 hours.

Yeah, those were the days, after my `subuh’ prayer, I will take my place with a huge tin bucket full of overnight soaked coconuts to be scrapped. I will do these chores diligently, and I would normally be given more than 1 big tin, reason being I was fast.

Mom is such an entrepreneur person, whatever she can make money from she will do it. We have many coconut trees on the land, so she will collect all the coconuts, and turn them into cooking oil. She never sells them though, but it saved her money from buying the commercial cooking oil for our use.

My fingers will at times be swollen from cuts that I will acquired accidently from the scrapper, it can go for weeks, because mom always have coconut to be scrapped. I wanted to be the best for mom, always wanting to give her a hand, so that she will not be too tired.

When I come back from school in the afternoon, I will help her to wait by the fire, where the coconut milk will be boiled till the oil starts coming out. It was not a fun thing sitting by the fire, as mom used the husk of the coconut, together with the coconut shells to make the fire, my eyes will be watering from the smoke, I will be smelling of smoke from head to toe, but it gives me the satisfaction of helping mom, thus easing her of the chores.

It was just like yesterday, seeing the bottles and bottles of coconut oil covering the shelf of mom’s kitchen and dining area, she was ever so proud of the coconut oil that she made, day after day.

But now mom is too tired, the coconut trees are too old, I am too far, and making coconut oil is just a distant memory.