republikbabi

“Je bent niet alleen” my oma said once to my mother during her last moments. This is just a memory of my oma shared by mother, few days before she passed away. I wrote this so I won’t forget.

Oma and Sis (1982)

Mom was a single fighter in her family. A second generation dutch-chinese. She is a career woman, working to her fullest to pay the house bill, expenses and our college fee. It was in 2005. My sister and I were living far from house. I lived in bandung while my sister lived in Jakarta. As result, the house was pretty much deserted. My oma, my father, and my opa (who’s having dementia) were the only residents of the house.

Mom never went home below 11 pm. It was consequence of living in Tangerang, it took approximately 2 hours of driving to reach house after the end of day.

Oma usually waited for her. Indeed, my mother was my the youngest of the siblings. My oma had been staying with us for 10 years, she was closest to my mother and has been the most beloved figure of my entire family. I remembered she often spoke random dutch to my mother and her sister. She usually called me “schat“, which means “dear” in Dutch.

She was the person that taught me of dutch-indonesian identity which I was really ignorant of. She was really happy when visiting her father country in 2001, reunited with her elder sister after 50 year of separation.

Even after living in chinese culture, she still fluent in dutch (and she said she was forced to speak japanese during occupation) and proud of her eurasian heritage. She kept her family name, de Wilde and never changed her name even after Indonesian government forced chinese to pick indonesian-sounding names.

Oma was probably best portrayed as the ever-loving grandmother that you could find in children books. She cooked a lot of dutch-style meal for us, she’s probably the reason our family (except my father who’s hokkien chinese) loved cheese more than anything else. I think she almost used cheese for all her cooks. Viva cholesterol.

I remembered my mom shared about her last moments during random conversation in her car.

Mom said, oma probably aware already she would not stay with us any longer. Several nights, she waited my mom coming home from work. It was probably 11 pm or more. All of sudden, she said to my mom:

“Je bent niet alleen”

It means “you are not alone” in dutch. She usually spoke dutch to show affection and need to talk in secret.

Mom was puzzled. Oma also said that she wanted to buy a little dog for my mother so she won’t be alone after arrived at home, just like her eldest sister who also has little dogs at her house. But mom said it was impossible because there was no more space for little dog in the small house, it might become source of annoyance. She still unaware oma’s time was running out.

Few days later, oma was no longer with us. She passed away because of sudden heart attack at 25 february 2005. three days before my sis’ birthday and six days before my birthday. Never again we will celebrate our birthday with our oma. It was flood of tears during the morgue, also worst moment in my life.

Everyone came and crying for her, starting from grocery men, and some people from kampung I never know of. Mom said oma ocassionally cooked for them in Idul Fitri.

I think everyone still sad when remembering her. But it’s okay. Everything has reason. If she had been living longer, she might get worse diseases and living painfully in deathbad. She left us when she was still herself, unlike my opa who had been suffering dementia due result of malpracticism.

Occassionally I dreamed of her, I dreamed that she was still around, and I ended up crying in dream. Even in the dream I couldn’t say it.

Sometimes we forget she was no longer around.  There was very awkward conversation about who will prepare dinner in house and mom forgot oma actually passed away already (mom is double platinum champion for worst cook in family or world – a victim son’s testimony).

Mom: Let’s just eat dinner at the house
Father: What? Who will cook the dinner?
Mom: Well oma will cook of course!
(silence)
Father: Did you forget she has passed away?

Mom said, maybe people really could know when their time was running out. Oma had shown the behaviour, she talked about the “ifs”. She talking what would have happened if she was no longer around. She wanted my mother kept a little dog as her replacement, because oma no longer could wait her daughter came home.

It was sweet and bitter memory with her. “Je bent niet alleen”…

It was Oma’s last word to my mother. It was also some last moment I saw her role as mother to daughter. I found it perplexing. I never thought a second that she is also a mother, not just a grandmother. Maybe I was just surprised because I was seeing her other side, as a mother who was afraid to leave her daughter alone because she would be no longer around.

Thank you for being with us, oma. Thanks for teaching us that Goodness, Kindness, and Unconditional Love do exist in the world.

It’s probably too late, but I will not let her memory vanish. It’s because of her I started investigating the family tree and dutch-indonesian connection. It’s the least I could do because I forget to say “Ik hou van je, oma”.

Really, grandchildren shouldn’t forget tell the three words to their grandparents. Grandparents know you love them more than anything else in the world, but you don’t want to forget saying the words, even just once when you could still say it.

Don’t you think so, Opa?;)

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