farewell, mother, til we meet again

I guess there's no escape on this one, only delays, no matter how I tried to look at it, I guess I am indebted to write, about my mother, for her, for the sakes of being her son.

And something in my mind tells me that this piece won't probably end in one sitting, so many years, so many beautiful memories, so many things to say.

on the night of December 28, 2010, approximately seven hours after I received my mother's text saying she's leaving Jakarta for two days, about a day and a half from our last encounter, my mother, 26 days after her 48th birthday, left this world, left us who love her greatly, forever.

it was shocking, as though we know that she's got a heart condition, it was her high blood pressure that took her life. the vein from her right to the brain popped, leaving signs of blood sipping out of the skin on her neck, ear and right temple.

she was smiling.

I guess parts of us wanted to think that she was smiling, that she didn't feel too much pain at the end, because we weren't there. it was as if the mighty God had cunningly deviced a scheme for her to be with us at the end, without us realizing it, and took her at the time when we're the most ignorant, when she was alone, miles away from us, and guess what, the scheme worked.

from fragments I tried to assemble my last memories of her, the two days we spent together, and all of them cornered me, leaving regrets and deep remorse. I wish I treated her better.

I was too emerged in my works, that my eyes were constantly on to the small blackberry screen. I wish I had looked at her face intensely, even for a brief moment, held her as long as I could like what I always do, which I didn't.

"let's go out and watch the rain together,"

and now, when it rains, it was as though God punished me for not doing that simple thing, a code for "let's talk, just you and me".

"show me that images you took at Bonnie's wedding"

and now every time I scavenge images of her, her beautiful pictures from the wedding, tears forced out. I should have shown her, how beautiful she was wearing that blue kebaya, how beautiful she is for us her children. but instead, the lazy me used it to start a useless lazy-bum-excuse quarrel.

if only we could grasp the deeper meaning behind everything.

I didn't think she was immortal, but I did think that she will always be around. and at the end -though most of us like to believe that she was much prepared- my head wanted to believe that she too thought that she will always be here.

I should be blamed, for thinking that some things can wait.

some things can't, and the expressions of love, mainly the actions of showing it, shouldn't be made second.

there's no logical explanation of why tears are formed when we're sad. some scientific explanations, digesting the chemical content of the liquid substance, did its best by reexplaining the question, because of emotion.

when I think of mom, my heart feels like exploding, my chest hurts, it feels as though I'm experiencing the after impact of a severe beating, and that it swells, and the body just can't contain it.

I don't know how anybody could deal with such situation, how are they coping, how could they manage to go on.

I miss my mom so much..




For the most time, my brain can't digest it, still waiting for daily calls that never comes. But when it can,

I can't remember how many times I found myself crying, uncontrollably, profusely in dark places, in one corner, on my desk, in front of my computer, on my bike, now..

which is ridiculous really, because an ocean of tears won't sail her back. I should have known that it didn't, it won't get any easier, the passing of time only confirms her absence.




I remember one afternoon several years back, moments before breaking the fast, my step dad was bringing a healthy food home, and mom looked at it and cried.

"I've been holding my appetite for a whole day and this is what I got for it?!"

she really cried, really up set, I was bewildered, I thought it was funny, sometimes after that I would joke about it, and we would laugh, but I still remember step dad's expressions, he looked at her in awe, feeling like he had done something terrible, like he had left a starving kid to a family of cannibals, mistakenly thinking they were nice.

mom loves great food, unhealthy one, and she always deters those who stack on land, saying they don't take land with them when they die. like most people, her stress release is getting a new bag, or a new pair of shoes. though when I offer to get one for her, she would chose something cheap, afraid of taking too much from her son, though at the end, she wouldn't wear them, probably just once, when I was around.

mom was funny, she was wonderful, more than everything she was home.

and her knowledge of things are astounding. I'm proud to say that whenever a quick knowledge of what's going on, updates are necessary, why people are protesting the president, what is the current situation after the eruption, whatever happen to the wife of the current Japanese emperor, is Garuda actually a bird, I can't remember one thing, one question that she couldn't answer.

she even did an interview for me once, with a neighbor who went to arab as maid. she should be doing my job.

on her last days with us though, she looked so tired, too tired. bags under her eyes, choosing to sleep at the sofa instead of the bed, and excessive walking, at the mall, at stupid places to have quality times with us.

it was as if her body couldn't contain it any longer, couldn't compete with her willpower of spending the most time with us her kids, her grand children, she was always wanted to do something.

it's almost as if her body tricked her, pushing itself to do things that are usually fall beyond its capacity.

the living parts of a dear community, forming a massive engine that is my mother's force to live, knew their time was near, so in a giant gathering, they looked at each other, with eyes filled with meaningful expressions, holding each other, with their wise leader saying at the end.

"let's make this final race a race worthy of remembrance. if this should end, we will make such an end.."

this reminds me so much of my grandmother, whom my mother loved dearly, whose death brought two swollen eyes on my mother's face for weeks.

thoughts about mom is not just about possibilities. we couldn't help it. questions are left unasked, unanswered, planned trips are left unattended, and a big chunk of love is left unexpressed.

she was proud of us, she was happy with the life we chose, she was glad that things turn out okay, but there were things we wished to accomplish on her behalf, because we know it will make her proud.

in fact most of the things in my life, things I've done and plan to do, are based on that very reason.

mother was everything, she was the sun, with us constantly revolving around her, fixed on our trajectory, in a perpetual motion, which is the nature of things for us. even now when she's gone, we're still revolving, with the memories of her as our anchor, the center of our life's gravity.

but death is a part of what life's got to offer, it's something the dalai lama should say, though he did say that life should be easier once we realize that death is a natural part of life.

if we knew, of such secrets written in God's book called fate. if she happen to read this, as she would normally try to, walking half a mile to the nearest place with an internet connection just to see her son on youtube. if in anyway possible she could see us, here with us, she would know that the love we feel, the grateful feelings of her everyday existence in our life, the pride of being her son, the joy of her company, that unique feeling of fulfillment seeing her familiar laughter drenched in bright June sky, our admiration in the way she carried herself, how she glide, her simplicity that brighten the dreary skies in rainy days, she would understand

that there's never a condition for our love, forever we are her children, and forever she claims the throne in our heart.

"we will meet again, but until then, we will celebrate your life, every day, knitting our own scape of you into full."

"each path we took in that race is worthy of remembrance, and the long hard race that we got through makes us victors."

here, with what's left,
your mother loving child