People might know me as someone’s tough, brave, and resilience. I will always be there, being the one who got everybody’s back. I know it sounds so narcissistic and arrogant, but that’s the impression I want from everybody. If you wonder where I got this thing, it’s from him.
He always is the one we can always count on. The saviour of our family, the one who loves to work hard and never stop until he got what he desired. He started everything roughly. The story of him losing his mum in the age when a boy needs the guidance of a mother. He fought, struggled, and survived. He was there, for everyone else. For his two little sisters and brother. He was there, doing his best in college and setting aside his dream to pursue education abroad. He engulfed whatever people said about him and turned it into the fuel that burned him into someone better and stronger.
I also remember how he always told me he was in eleventh position between the other men who queuing up for my mum. I believe this is a kind of bullshit but I know that this is the most favourite part of your love story since you always told us this story all the time. He married my mum with nothing in his hands, except the promise to make her happy later. He had been there, down and unseen, with people, saw him as a trivial matter. I also remember how mad I am since he frequently travelled around during the weekend for the business matter. Little did I know that he was striving for us, for me.
That childhood. Oh, how lucky I am. I do remember how you bring me with you in the early morning to get gallons of water for the whole family. You put me in the cart filled with waters and push it with both of your hands through the uphill roads. I was so happy at that moment and we both laughing. There was also a time when you went home early and bring me the ‘Chiki’ that has tazos inside and you taught me how to play with it. I was so amazed by your ability to make the tazos spinning. Or the time when you were back from the office and bring me those jelly and Nyam-Nyam. You might forget these memories but I remember every single of this memory so clearly. So clear, until I frequently dreaming about this recently.
I do remember how he always wanted me to be a doctor. He will give me anything I want if I said yes. Since I just want to be a good human being and his love and affection are the only thing I required, I said big no for medical school. I also do remember how hard I cried that morning when I failed to get into the university I wanted. I was so devastated since I failed to prove that I can achieve the goal I set. And you were there that morning, wearing a long sleeve shirt and perfume, went out to meet someone you know from the university, to get me in. I know that you never use a long sleeve shirt and you hate using perfume, so I guess I was that special for you. I hope so.
There are times when I saw you as the most selfish and self-absorbed human being. Some things made me want to scream “The world doesn’t revolve around you!!” into his face. But his decisions to let me chase my dream and support me to pursue whatever I desired are the most sincere and genuine action of a human being I ever received.
Five years we have been living separately. We’ve been staying under a different roof. You were not sleeping in the room beside mine, you were not in the kitchen, silently cooking Indomie for me, you were not in the living room, watching the food channel all the time. You were not part of my daily life anymore. In the one last year, your physical form has turned into text message that came twice a day, your live voice became the dashed phone call I received only during your free time, and your face can only be seen by the blurry picture of the video call we did on the weekend. You were not living and lingering around me anymore. But I want you to know, that it’s always you that I think when I cook my midnight Indomie, it’s always you that I saw when I eat the pancake in McDonald, it’s always your name that I whisper every night before I sleep, wishing that it is you, the first creature that I saw the first tomorrow.
I do really sorry that once again I am not there, hugging you tightly during your birthday, saying my gratitude of your existence as a father of me. I do really sorry that my presence is still in the form of a photo, a phone call, and this long letter that I wrote. I do really sorry that you have to feel sad about missing me this one last year. I do really sorry that I ever failed to make you proud. I do really sorry if I ever being such a disappointment.
Imagining the scene of me arriving at the airport and seeing you, together with mum, waiting in the arrival gate is so frightening since meeting you guys are still uncertain due to the current pandemic and stuff. But, I can’t wait for the time I will finally be able to see you again in the physical form. Please wait for me to come home, since we had a lot of things to catch on, from the midnight McDonald routine, eating Pisang-Ijo near Plaza Marina together, buying more Koi fish for our pond, cooking Nasi Goreng with load of red-sauce, a sudden trip to Malang, and anything you wish to do with me.
Hi, it’s me again, your firstborn, your only daughter. It’s been the twenty-third of 19 October in my life and I believe it’s the fifty-first in your life. And I do hope that there will always be more 19 October that we will cherish together. Please live a long life, Bapak. I do love you.
