Just returned a short trip from Makassar. My granny (from father’s side) just passed away at thursday 21 May 2009. I took a day off from office to attend the funeral.
This is just some miscelleneous story of my life and would probably not too interesting to the audience. I wrote it just for archival purpose and some sort of contemplation, about love and death of my grandparents.
I remembered 4 years ago, my world almost collapsed when my mom sent me a short message informing my Oma (my granny from mother’s side) passed away suddenly at 25 February 2009, around midnight. I could probably hear the news sooner, but I turned off my cellphone back then, I was concentrating to write some paper about israel and palestine.
In the morning, I read the message, dumbfounded. End of the world. I kept hoping that my mom just send me a very very bad joke. I cried like never I been before. I was thinking like “this couldnt be true, this is joke, a bad joke” all days long. I went to campus with teary eyes. I tried my best to concentrate during Indonesian Law Class, but it was no use, my mind was wandering nowhere. I keep denying my oma wasn’t with me anymore. I booked a shuttle to return to Jakarta after the class over.
I kept denying myself it’s joke. It’s early april mop. The scene was still clear in my mind, I kept gazing in the car like lifeless zombie. I kept saying to myself, it’s a bad joke. Bad joke. But that wasn’t till I arrived at mortuary and found my oma in white coffin, then I bursted into tears, sadness I never felt before. I grew with my oma, my mom was a very busy career woman, I spend about 10 years with her. She was our entire family’s mother.
My oma’s departure was unexpected. She was sick for years (I thought it was tumor or cancer), but she looked healthier than her husband (my opa, my mom’s dad) who suffered dementia. She actually on her way to my auntie’s home because she was preparing my sis’ birthday party in 28 February, and it was a week before my birthday.
It’s funny how you could meet your beloved ones during your sleep. Sometimes I was dreaming about my oma, unaware it was dream and that she wasn’t with me anymore. I even dreamed that I was dreaming she was dead, I thought all the funeral was nightmare.
In the dream, I usually ended up crying, because I usually noticed it was her, yet I couldnt’ tell what I really wanted to say for all these years. I haven’t told her once that I loved her. I still regret it till now. I don’t know how valuable she was, never once crossed possibility in my mind that my granny would leave me soon.
I dreamt I will have a trip for her to visit netherlands together. But things couldn’t change, my oma has left me forever.
Three words left. Unspoken.
It was different with my other grandparents. My engkong (my father’s dad) passed away some months later. I rushed to Makassar, attended another funeral, but I didn’t feel so much sadness compared when my oma was gone. My engkong was powerful man. He was from Shi family, proud of our chinese heritage. My family members often told me how he treasured me and I was his favorite grandson, because I’m the only bearer of our family surname. But again, it’s not like I didn’t love him. I just didn’t have enough memories about him, plus he was a very high-tempered person.
The same goes for my opa (my mom’s dad). I didn’t have much memories of him. He was the reason I despise doctor very much. He was victim of malapractism. He was eating wrong medicine for years, causing his brain to degenerate and suffering dementia. He was like a baby in a body of an old man.
I grew watching him laying all the time in the bed. He was unable to do everything, everytime I saw him I felt life was so unfair. My opa didn’t do anything, why must he suffer that much? Why that doctor couldn’t be taken into court? When he passed away in 2006, our entire family felt so much relief. We all have prepared and actually expected this. His pain finally gone.
We also felt the same to my amma (spelled am’ma, makassarese, my dad’s mother), the one just passed away few days ago. She had this terrible tumor for 8 years. Her body was very thin, I couldn’t believe she was the beautiful granny I saw in the albums. She fortunately didn’t suffer so much memory loss, she still could identify me the last time she saw me during my engkong funeral in 2005. When she was gone, we felt relief. It was for the best. She was blessed with a long life, her pain should be ended.
What makes me feel terrible is that I didn’t feel very sad to my other 3 grandparents compared to my oma. My family members said I was my Engkong and Amma’s favorite. My mom told me that they kept me for three years after my birth and probably planned to keep me forever. It wasn’t too long before my mom made a sudden trip to makassar and “kidnap me” to Jakarta to reunite with my family. Yeah, it took three years before I could grow normally and being taken care with my mom.
As I grew in Java, I didn’t have a lot of chance to meet them. I seldom to visit makassar, and rarely made phone calls. We were busy with our life, and not forget to mention, I was being taken care by my oma. We were living together, she was my mom’s replacement, she told me a lot of stories about the lifes of indo people during world war II, or how the dutch and indo people were treated during japanese’s occupation. I have a lot of cherised memories of my oma, and almost nothing about my engkong, amma, and opa. I regretted that I didn’t have a lot of memories of them.
After a while, I was thinking. Maybe my oma’s sudden departure was the best. At very least she didn’t suffer like my other grandparents. She left us when she still was loved and remembered as person, not as someone in deathbed. Had her life prolonged, maybe it would have been different story, maybe I could end up as ignorant grandson, because I might end up stop caring for her.
I couldn’t deny that sometimes I still remembering my oma no matter how much I want to forget about her. I could end up crying before sleep, remembering the old memories. The moments when she was still alive and was with us. She provided us the meaning of “home”. Our house missing something everytime we go home. I don’t want to be attached with past, but I just couldn’t help it. As childish as it sounds, I don’t want her to be taken away. I wish things could have been different. Everytime I try to write about her, I always getting teary eyes of sudden. I don’t understand of myself. It was things of past, I thought. I thought maybe as time passes, I will eventually don’t feel sad anymore and I could smile when remembered her. But I’m apparently wrong, I don’t smile at all, I always ended up crying, I wonder why.
I’m still the same selfish grandson I used to be. I could only conclude that part of me wants to move on but the other one doesn’t.
I hope I’m not the only person alone in this matter.
My Condolence to you Calvin. I think you’ve learned a lot from your Oma, who accompany you a lot at home. May her cherised memories with you lived forever.
Pliz accept my condolences vin..
First I want to express my sympathy to you on the loss of your grandparent. And to give you my respect for this touching post of recollection and grief.
There is one line I would to react to: “I haven
thanks for the kind words guys
@colson
) that’s relieving to hear. I hope other people wont repeat my mistake though. grandson and granddaughters should say the words even just once to their grandparents so they wont regret it later.
thank colson (shouldnt I call you opa Colson by now?
My deepest condolences. Your story reminded me of the death of my grandma. It was back in 1996, she had car accident in Pasteur highway and tragically passed away. It was a watershed in my grandpa’s life.
Colson is right, although I always encourage people to say it. I even make one article in my blog, pushing people to say how they love their beloved ones.
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Calvin, gw turut berduka cita yang sedalam-dalamnya.. dan gw setuju sama Colson, your grandma knows kok =) bahkan cuman dari baca post ini saja gw bisa merasakan betapa lo sangat mengagumi dan mengasihi Beliau.. apalagi Nenek lo sendiri Vin, she must have felt it in so many ways..
Tell you what, the next time she visits you in your dreams, tell her you Love her there. She’s the same person in your dreams as she was when she were still around. So it’s really just as same, right? So tell her there.
And please ask her to tell God to be good =)