Look closely at this photo. What do you see?

I see memories which will last a lifetime. Not for me, no, but for that family of aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews, mothers and fathers.

if you look closely on the center left, you’ll see two children playing in the sand at the edge of the ocean’s waves. On the right is picnic-central, complete with thermoses, snacks, extra clothing, blankets, mother, father, and daughter. The kids will run back and forth from the water while the parents will chat in the cool of the shade, enjoying the holiday, Malaysia Day 2016.

I took this photo from my usual writing spot, and the scene struck me so vividly that I had to take a photo of it through the trees. It was a lovely scene, the kind my family had when our kids were small. It’s a nostalgic scene, the kind that the Malaysian Normal Rockwell, if he exists, would happily paint and immortalize.

I can imagine what these kids will think in thirty years. Remember when Mom and Dad would pack the car and we would travel over the bridge to Penang Island, weave through the bumper-to-bumper holiday traffic, making the 45 minute ride to Batu Ferringhi where we would picnic by the sea for the entire afternoon, coming home exhausted by midnight? Remember?

Everyone, of course, will remember. And when these young kids have kids of their own, they too will come to Batu in search of the idyllic family day.

It’s moments like these that we all have to hold on to. It’s moments like these that make me glad that I’m a writer.