Leading Lady

Eyang Putri, at my favorite place on earth

My grandmother has no official birth date.

Nobody knows exactly when she was born, what year, in what month, or what day, not even what the sky looks like when she came into the world. What her mother knew, that night, there was a full moon.

Her official birthday, based on one local administration officer's judgement many years ago, happens on December 31, 1940. So all we know now is that she's 75, and her birthday is to be celebrated by everyone around the world.

Her family was poor, her biological father died when she wasn't even born yet, and the man she always thought to be her father, was in fact her stepdad. She did not even make it past 7th grade in school, and she was married off at 16, to a man 14 years her senior: my Grandfather. He was a man of ambition; even when people back in their era chose to be a soldier and fought in the war, he stayed as a civil worker and later in his life, went back to college and learned economics. He'd rather use his brain and worked his best to feed his family. He was a respectable man, and since this was way before Indonesia is famous for its corruption, he was genuinely honest in doing his job. He worked for the local governor until his last dying breath at age 51, leaving 7 kids to his widowed wife who had no education whatsoever, while their youngest daughter was just 5 years old.

So you understand now how long she's been left without a husband, when the man is her only window to the entire world? The world can be such a small and scary place for someone who's uneducated. It can be too full of uncertainty, and pressure, and hardships. I dare not to imagine myself in her shoes, because I might break down in tears because I don't even know if it was possible.

I don't know if she's an excellent mother, because I suspect she wasn't. She's not even very great at being a grandmother. But you know what she is? She is doing what she can, in her capabilities, within her own means, despite her own limitations.

I don't know how she does it.

Maybe it's through her prayers. Maybe it's what she said to her kids. Or maybe it's something she did that inspire them. Who knows? Life is a series of sequence that work together to create a story so distinct for one person to the other, which is why life is a mystery and it's bigger than what anyone could ever write about.

It's been a long 28 years since my grandfather departed, and the woman has seen quiet everything a woman in her standard would be expected to see. People have lost count how many times she's traveled to the Holy Land. She's gone south to the Kangaroo Island. She's visited the great Uncle Sam. She's seen the land of the Turks, and therefore she kind of has been to the Blue Continent.

She's been to every single one of her grand children's graduation ceremony, wherever it is. She told me how it's her favorite part of having a family: "Weddings are weddings. It's just a wedding. But graduation is something you worked hard for. It's a milestone. It's the start of a good life. I didn't go to school. Your grandfather could not finish his college education. But you can. And that's something."

The woman doesn't even have the slightest idea about what having an education feels like. She only went to school so that she's not illiterate, but she understands how important it is to be educated, even though her grandchildren are 95% girls.

The sad part is, she lives in a society. A society that has a system that's always bigger than its people. Even despite her own greatness, her unbelievable endurance in facing the hard reality of life, she's still limited to the things she could have done if her husband were still here. So many of the things she said she'd missed, things she said she'd want to do again in this lifetime, would be followed by the crashing sound of her voice saying, "...but what would people say if I do that by myself? I'm a widower. I have been, for longer than I wasn't."

I used to dislike hanging out with my grandmother. Somehow, I wasn't free to do what I wanna do, and because whenever I hang out with her, the focus shifted from hanging out with my nuclear family to simply making her happy. What I didn't understand is that, she deserves all that treatment we're supposed to give her. She's endured her own limitations for so many years, that now, it's truly the least thing we can do for her, from whom I was partly generated from, to focus on making new memories that she will cherish, despite the mild dementia that's starting to gnaw on her memories.

Now every time I was going to spend some time hanging out with grandmother, I'd take note; because this is how I should treat my mother someday. Hopefully in the same healthy condition as she is treating her mother, and the same capability to make each other happier than the world usually made us. 

Precedents

Hi. Thank you for picking up Shirley and Audrey from their ballet school. I tried to leave my desk just in time, but then that client from Tokyo called and he needs me to save his bourgeois ass. I am so glad your meeting with the Russian gentlemen ended early. It meant a lot to me, and perhaps much more to the girls, because finally their pals get to see the man they're always so proud of. They always had their nanny took them for ice cream straight after ballet, but never did they have their father taking them shopping to get some girly, good luck charm for their recital! Audrey said it made her so happy to see you before dark, before she was tucked in bed, ready for her princess sleep. And Shirley, she thought you looked rather handsome than your usual tired-on-the-weekend self. I know you were excited too; we never deny the fact that these corporate jobs corrupted the time we should've spent with them, but there is nothing we can do as we love these jobs almost as much as we love to see them having the life they deserve. You kept assuring me that they'll be fine. They'll be okay. We're doing the best we can, and it will affect them. They will try to be the best version they can be, too. There are precedents. There may not be a lot, but there are success stories. And I want to believe that. I want so badly to believe that. 

Too Bad I'm Not Paul McCartney

I barely ever talked about my father, didn't I? Well, he deserves one post of his own in this page, so, here it goes for you, Dad.

Spend a day with my father. You might find some laughter or nothing. He doesn't talk much, unlike me, but you'll learn some unspoken wisdom from a very modest old man. He's probably the most modest person in this rich world I know. There might be very little words of him that I can quote, but there's a lot of love that I have to learn from him.

Because he loves his daughters more than anything. Because he still loves his wife the same as 32 years ago. Because he did a job I know wasn't his interest but still did it well to make a living out of it. Because he's so loyal, a good employee, and the best boss his workers ever had. Because he never demanded anything too high and just go with the flow. Because he enjoys his life and always being thankful about it, no matter how much he lost. Because he introduced me to really good music: The Beatles, Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin, Queen (and Freddie Mercury, for this matter), Nat King Cole, Alison Moyet...... the list goes on forever.

Screw failure of not being accepted in public Uni, screw not being able to drive, screw shopping 'til drop, he still loves his daughters for who we are. There's no problem for him as long as we're still his daughters.

I think he sees the glass as half empty, so when the whole thing spills, he won't be as devastated as other people. I barely saw him being disappointed or sad. I never see him crying unless it's a really sad movie. When he lost his mother last year, I heard he cried over it but I don't know. The minute I heard he was crying on the phone, I thought, "Oh well, the big man I thought was my rock, cries." You know, that's the kind of moment when you finally realise that your father wasn't a Superman.

The best things I learned from him?

You can't make everyone happy. But nobody said you can't try.

Apapun yang kamu dapet, nikmatin ajalah. Kayaknya nggak ada gunanya kamu jadi orang cynical atau terus kecewa sama dunia di sekitar kamu.

Band sekarang banyak sih. Bagus-bagus juga kan dek? Tapi kok kayaknya nggak ada ya yang bisa jadi The Beatles masa depan? Apalagi band-band yang kamu dengerin, dielu-elukan sekarang tapi coba 6 bulan lagi, emang ada yang inget band apa itu Amazing Baby?

I sometimes wish I were Paul McCartney, so that I could write a good song about my father like "When I'm Sixty-Four" or something like that (my dad LOVES Paul, for the record). And the best part of him? He's still proud of me even though I'm nothing like Paul! One day I'm gonna write a book about him, or whatever, a song, a painting, anything really, one thing for sure the world has to know what kind of person he is!