Getting to know my new friend, The Computer.

To edit my husband's book I need to know how to use the computer. I could not allow myself to depend on the type writer as he did when he was writing his memoir. Fortunately for me I had learned how to use the computer, which I assume that most people of my age think that the computer is difficult to master as it is suitable only for the young. I was once in that group. Only my grand daughter, Ayne, managed to lure me into growing to get close to it. I must say she was so patient with me. She detailed the steps from the beginning like no.1 press 'o' for power, then no 2, press the mouse at Safari and so on and on until you are ready to start writing your e mails and have them sent. She wrote down the steps on a piece of paper and then watched while I followed the steps written by her. That first stage was full of apprehension and exhilaration. The feeling of achievement was like the feeling after your baby was  out of your body when she or he was born. What was needed I suppose was an acceptance on my part that I could not be too proud to learn from my grand daughter and to acknowledge that to the young people, like her, the computer was a fun thing with which they could relate to as a matter of fact in life. Even today my 10 year old grandson, Raeyn, knows what to do with his I Pad more than I know what to do with mine. 

So when I was editing the book, writing letters to the various people in the publishing business, I was actually feeling high. I felt young again. I felt like a professional. There were letters to write and people to contact. I contacted constantly a few friends like Tan Sri Raymond Navaratnam, spoke to Tun Hanif Omar, Tan Sri Rama Iyer and Miss Wong Radin's former secretary. Having to do so many things, I no longer felt so lonely as I would have been if I was to be doing nothing but thinking and missing him. My mind became totally focused on the project and with Ayne and Ezryn we single handedly managed the whole project with only ocassional consultations with my sons and daughter and much later with Eleanor, our book designer. It took us a year to do it from the very beginning to the moment of having the books in boxes ready for the bookshops. There were moments of joy, moments of sadness, moments of pride, moments of gratitude, and moments of humility because every moment we spent on the book were moments of special dedication to our beloved and a very dear person in our lives. It was very plain to us that the three of us were grieving the loss in our very own way. Especially so when the three of us together we spent the last few days and the last few hours with him in the hospital and we read the 'Yassin' together to him. At the end of it all it was our loving committment to get the book out by December 2011, that gave us the strength to see it through.