There is no definite time that I can remember. But it was definitely in 1999, when I was only 5 years old. It was most likely some times during the day because I remember seeing the sun reflection on the floor. Our home phone gave out a sudden ring. It was near the bathroom and my mom rushed to pick up the phone. I watched her over from the television room, trying to figure out who the calling was from. A few seconds after speaking a few words, I saw her back tremble and I couldn’t recall the rest. She hung up the call and went into my sister’s room which is just a few steps away from the home phone and laid down against the wall. I still remember very clearly the layout of my sister’s room, the single-sized bed as well as the yellow-painted walls that surrounded it. I stood still by the doorway of the room, looking at her back as she lay down there. She cried silently. A few moments later, I realized that my mom was crying because my grandmother, a.k.a my mom's biological mother, had passed away.
Mom wasn't there when grandma took her last breath, even when she was buried. My grandma was in Bandung at the time, along with my aunties and uncles who stayed there with her. Meanwhile, my family was in Makassar—the city in which my mom has lived in since she got married to my dad with all its novelties. Considering that I was only 5 years old at the time, my younger sister must have been 3 and I have two other siblings who were still in elementary school. These days, buying plane tickets is just as easy as a few taps away. But at that time, the situation did not allow us to fly right away. Thus, all she could do was lie down against the wall and cry all day.
Only about a week or two after that, mom finally went to Bandung with all her children and also managed to visit South Sumatra. Meanwhile, dad stayed alone at Makassar. Aside from having to work, at least someone has to look after the house.
The only thing I remember from grandma is her face. Not because I met her often, but because there was a photo of her that was put on the shelf that connects to my bed—along with my grandfather—who passed away before mom got married. I have no memories of either of them. There was absolutely no emotional bond, especially between my grandmother and I. So when I, for the very first time, along with my relatives and other family members visited my grandmother's grave, I considered it merely a visit. There was no feeling of sadness arising as I looked down at my grandmother's name written on the tombstone. I remember I had just woken up and I didn't even take a bath before going there. I wore clothes that were almost too fit in my body with a picture of Winnie the Pooh on it. Mom was busy trimming the plants off of my grandma's grave and I felt very sleepy.
A couple of years after that, my grandmother, a.k.a my dad’s biological mother, passed away. I can't tell that I have a deep emotional bond with her, but I remember making her laugh when she was sick. Somehow, I still remember the shape of her thin fingers, even the smell of her white skin. Grandma had been sick for quite so long, but I never knew what her illness was. Maybe because she was too old. And old people are susceptible to disease. She was being taken care of at her house in Bone—which is five hours away from Makassar—by my aunties who lived in that city with her. Sometimes dad came visiting and took me along with him, so I understood the situation quite well. I still remember the small room near the kitchen where my grandmother was being cared for, even in which direction her body was facing. The first time I saw my aunt cleaning grandma's feces, I was stunned. I think it was the first time I saw human feces other than my own. And it was the first time I'd ever seen an adult clean up other adults' feces.
Before being buried the next day after being declared dead, grandma was put in another room on the second floor. The atmosphere of that night is still vividly etched in my mind. Her body was on the bed covered with a white-colored mosquito net—or kelambu, as it was called. I touched her cold hand and then landed a kiss on her cheek. It was the very last memory I have of her.
As a kid, I didn't quite understand what death means, at least until the passing of my grandma(s). I just kinda led to believe that every dead person would go to a better place, wherever it might be. Seeing my mom cry that day made me feel helpless. Should I have asked right away what made her cry? Should I at least show some empathy by being by her side? As time went by, I began to understand that death is inevitable. I was not yet 8 years old when I began contemplating death before going to sleep. I imagined both my parents would die someday. Then, I began to imagine natural disasters that could happen at any time and take the lives of people I care for. It was by the end of 2004 when the tsunami occurred in the Indian ocean. For days straight, I couldn’t help myself from thinking; what if that incident happens to me? In the simulation that I did within my head, I felt I could be strong enough to face the situation. However, as I gave the thought another round, there was a sudden pain within my chest and it brought tears to my eyes instead.
What would the separation be like for me? How deep would the pain be?
Somehow, I learned about death by how other people cope with it. That is how I understand and try to connect to the feeling of abandonment before I experience it for real. One night around early 2005, I was at school for a Scout camping event. Suddenly, the brother of one of my friends came to pick up my friend, bringing the news that their father had passed away. That night, I visited my friend's house with my parents since we lived in the same housing. It was one of the moments that I learned, for once again, how dreary death is. From inside the room where my friend's father was, I looked into a room through the half-opened door. In that room, there was the older sister of my friend. She was already in senior high school. Like my mom when she heard the news of my grandmother's death, my friend’s sister lay on her bed—and wept as she lay against the wall.
I also still remember very well, in 2007, a national TV journalist reportedly drowned while covering the news of a shipwreck in the waters of West Java. The first time I watched the news on the television, I cried uncontrollably. I didn't even know him and he doesn't even know me either. But the footage about him was enough to make me feel broken because I knew that his loved ones must have felt broken too.
I became more and more familiar with the grief. And knowing anybody had to deal with it, is very torturing. At first, I thought that being cold-hearted could make the grief easier to overcome. I didn't want to get too attached to anyone. Even worse, I want people to dislike me. But since I realized that you don’t need an emotional connection to feel torn apart, I knew that I was mistaken.
With all that being said, I have to admit that I also don't feel any emotional connection with my family, especially my parents. I don't know if it was that ‘gap’ that made me grow up to be such a grumpy kid, or if it is the other way around. As a child, I was known as the one who likes to cry. Even a lot worse, the crying always comes with screaming. Each time I get my haircut at the salon near my house, I would come home and cry while screaming in front of the mirror. When I couldn't express my frustration with crying, I would hide in a corner of the house until I felt fed up. As far as I could remember, all the feelings I felt at that time—each part of its fluctuation—I faced them alone. I can't remember being told 'good job!’ ‘well done!’ for every little thing that I do, which makes me think that it amounts to nothing.
Sometimes it occurs to me that I envy other kids who earn influences from their family—that they inherited the taste from their parents. Ranging from music, art, or hobbies that they are living up to until now. In any interview sessions, someone will usually be asked who first introduced them to the particular field that they are engaged in.
“My dad was the one who first taught me to play guitar.”
“It was my mom who taught me how to bake.”
"When I was little, my father enrolled me in art courses."
“I can speak English because my mom and dad have used it since I was 10 years old.”
“I love listening to Bill Withers because my mom and dad always play it at home every weekend.”
“I like writing because my parents spoiled me with books.” and so they would say.
Coming to think of it, I realized that my influences were never from my closest person, especially family. I never know what kind of music my parents like to listen to. None of them ever taught me any practical skills, if that explains a thing. Never have I ever registered in any extra courses other than the ones I had in school. There were times when I could have asked them, but I knew for sure that it would cost them a lot and I am not the only child in the family. Thus, I learned everything my way. There was only one time when I saw my father play my guitar, in front of the television, and the rest remained non-existent. My first guitar was the gift that I asked my parents for as a graduation gift after I spent 3 years in junior high school learning from a classmate. I first learned it when I was in my first grade. Normally, they were supposed to watch me perform with my band when I participated in some school gigs. But they never knew that I had any. It was rather too awkward to tell them in the first place.
I feel somewhat grateful that my circumstances allowed me to make the most out of all the available resources. Perhaps that was what makes me a typical observant kind of person, that I couldn’t come up theoretically. I am more of a learning-by-doing person. Always have, always am. That is what makes it hard for me sometimes because I always end up thinking that I am unqualified. When I know how to do something, I just know. Just don't get me wrong. I have never blamed, and would never blame my parents for my knowledge of something that they never taught me about. It was never an issue. However, there is no limitation of where you can get knowledge from.
There are so many personal-collective memories yet they generate many kinds of feelings. Long before I was born, my dad had been working as a lecturer. He would sometimes take me with him to the campus when he had classes to teach. Usually, I would wait outside the class, by the edge of the corridor, with a piece of teh kotak in my hand. Other times, I waited beside him in the class, like a lecture assistant, but did nothing but sit there. When I am asked what I want to become, sometimes I answer that I want to become a lecturer. Of course, it was only one of many professions that I wanted to be (which I strived to be still art and design-related). But for this one, I want to become a lecturer because I was exposed to it by him. All my life.
Dad would come home from campus with a sling bag full of papers and a box of snacks—buana, to be specific with the brand. He always brought home the lunch box he got from the seminars or final exams which he attended. When he didn't seem to carry it by hand, I would check into his bag myself. On regular days even when he didn't have any campus-related activity, I like to check in his bag only to find a piece of teh kotak. He would just smile when I pointed out that there was something 'left' in his bag. It was like finding a treasure.
Every Wednesday afternoon and Sunday morning, dad would play tennis on a tennis court at the campus and often took me with him. It was kind of his routine. As far as I could remember, he lived a healthy life—does regular exercise, doesn't smoke, and doesn't even drink coffee at all. We will ride in his dark blue-colored Vespa to the tennis court which is not far from our house. Truthfully, I've always thought that his Vespa was kind of heavy. Even now when I describe it to anyone, I would describe it saying “It was very heavy!” and they would say that it was probably not as heavy as I thought it was. Perhaps because I was only a kid back then and I don’t adjust my memory to my current knowledge. After all, I always remember my dad’s Vespa, which he finally ‘gave away’ to someone before I grew up. It was the Vespa that brought me to enroll in elementary school after spending a few short months in kindergarten. At the age of 5, I demanded to be enrolled in elementary school because I thought kindergarten activities were no longer fun. It was boring, to sum it all up. “I am sick of eating lunch boxes and singing along together every single day.” I explained to my parents. Finally, dad sewed me a uniform—the typical white shirt and the red skirt—which I wore the day I first came to the elementary school to enroll. Apparently, he was being too optimistic as there was a huge chance I wouldn’t be accepted. I wasn’t qualified in terms of age. Just a few seconds after I performed reading the Pancasila on the wall, my life began.
Dad never said anything about my hobby—how I like spending hours drawing, sometimes I create noises at midnight with my guitar-playing, and how I always stay up late doing things I like. We never had any daddy-daughter talk so there was not any advice in our conversation that I could quote and bring up in any of my talks. He could have taught me how to sew, or maybe take some time to teach me his native tongue. Sometimes I think if only my parents were a little bit more supportive, let alone constructive, things would have become ideal. Maybe he just couldn't care less about what I was doing. Until one day, one of his friends happened to come to our house. Before he got to leave, my dad excitedly brought that friend of his to the front of my room to show the drawings that I sticked on the wall. "She drew those herself." he said.
The other day, I heard he was talking about me on the phone. A moment before that, I managed to drag a very big wardrobe on my own. As I said, it was very big as it almost covered the whole side of the wall and was made from real wood. Dad peeked in from the window when I did that. I didn’t know whom he talked to across the phone, but he laughed hard.
Things got very tough when dad got sick, but at the same time, there was a silver lining striking on the cloud. It was like I was carrying the whole world on my back and yet I am honored to take such responsibility. “You are very strong.” some of my friends said to me, even a best friend of mine acknowledged that he cried when we got separated after I shared with him about my circumstances. I didn't feel the urge to tell the whole scene to everyone, which I wouldn’t, but some of my friends definitely knew. Not even my family knew about how I felt back then. They only judge from what they see, which is alright. “Icha - who loves her dad so much.” That's how my big family would describe me. Trust me, I have done everything I could. Even when I never really felt any sense of proximity between my dad and I—in particular.
Though I believe in my own strength, I realized that being strong isn’t limited to the physical state only. Am I mentally strong? How do I act on self-control? Now that I am no longer a young adult, the term strong has an expanded definition. It doesn’t only refer to both mentally and physically, but to any state that affects my being.
The good thing was my relationship with my dad finally let loose. Throughout the years of awkwardness, it has evolved into a state that creates multiple senses. Mostly relief and gratitude, to mention a few. We finally had our first deep talk and I got to ask him a question that I've always wanted to ask my whole life. I even called him with ‘sayangku, cintaku’, and sometimes I would hug him just out of the blue. Unfortunately, it all happened after I found out that he had a short-term memory loss. Dementia, I assumed. I was the first person to find that out, right on Eid day in 2017. He lay down on his bed with a blank stare. Even when he spoke, his eyes seemed hollow and it was as if his soul wasn't there. I tried to address a few questions and just attempted to talk to him as long as possible. At one point, he asked me, “where is my wife?” I froze. Before my brain got to processing the question, my tears had already fallen. There were only the two of us. Truthfully, I can't count how many nights I spent alone with dad. I have lost count of the moments I was being 'the only person’.
Since that Eid day, I have always imagined the worst case. To be truthful, long before that day, my head already wrapped around that thought since dad had been sick for so long. But ever since he had memory issues, the possibility always felt as close as a heartbeat. And the worst case happened almost 5 years later. However, there is life that happens in between. Sometimes I would look back and think; how did I manage to get through them all? There were plenty of dramatic scenes and my heart got ripped out most of the time. Those big chunks of memory, like the ones in my childhood, will remain vivid until they are eroded by time.
I always think that our memory has its way to play a trick on us. It might be faded, but never removed. Last year in early April, just before Ramadan, I went to Palembang with my uncle, aunt, and cousin. Before heading there, we stayed for one night in Gunung Raja village, Muara Enim district, the place where most of my mom’s big family was born, grew up and buried. The morning after we stayed at my cousin's house, or before we continued our journey to Palembang, we visited the grave of my grandfather, a.k.a my mom's father. The location is in the village of Gunung Raja—quite remote, but there are still houses around. Some are even the houses of our relatives. The graveyard was nothing like I remember it to be—as I still have the picture of myself sitting on my auntie's lap along with my big family by the side of my grandpa's grave. By the time we arrived there, we all did the typical ritual of visiting the grave—trimming the grass off the grave with bare hands—and most importantly, reciting prayers together. Before we even got to the grandfather's grave, I noticed there was a sound of sobbing coming from my uncle. He wept as he walked toward the grave, looking at the name written there. It had been 34 years since my grandpa's passing, and it still hurts the hell out of him. No matter how well you seem to get along with the hole that the grief has left you with, you just can't help yourself from feeling sad. There's no magic cure and it will always feel as if something is missing. It is something that I have learned the hard way.
Grief is a very strange thing. It’s an odd mixture of all bad feelings you thought you could endure, but it actually rips you out to the core. Everyone will die—I guess it is already embedded in our minds even when we don't seem to think of it or talk about it. It is just a matter of time anyway. Throughout my life, I have never been good at expressing condolences. For me, the most genuine thing that one can do in such a situation is to share silence with the one who is going through the hard times. No words could be comforting enough, but I highly appreciated each of the helping hands that try to reach out. I think what saddens me the most is knowing that the person is no longer present. Never have I imagined otherwise—like maybe if my dad was still around, he would be able to see me achieving many milestones—like what my best friend assumed after I told him that I felt like crying the whole day and I didn't know why. It was never the point, neither was the case. It is a very, very strange feeling as you see the person being taken into the grave as if you leave them alone there, but at the same moment, you are the one who is being left. The pain is doubled. Eventually, you’ll be reminded over again that the person is no longer present and that’s the only truth that strikes you out.
Everyone has their own coping mechanism, and I never really thought of mine until very recently—as a best friend of mine asked me. It still feels like yesterday when I cried during an online meeting—of course, with the mic and camera off, because I was still grieving. I had no real interaction with people for about a couple of weeks and just tried to bury myself in movies and books, basically just trying to let the feeling engulfed. Somehow, I am not convinced that my life has become better—or whether there is a slight difference between now and then. As cliché as it sounds, this is just how it is, in any sense. The world will turn dark at times that it makes you unable to see, yet it will get very bright too. Though that doesn't necessarily mean you will be able to see things through. We all feel so many emotions, and that’s just how all this has been.
