INDONESIA: Short Story - Mother's Deepest Pain

. JAKARTA, Indonesia / The Jakarta Post / March 1, 2009 Garniasih | Short story "I got whipped quite often with that belt of his. We were just kids bored of being locked up in our room for nap time. So we would sneak around and play with whatever we could get our hands in to. There was a closet big enough for me to fit in to and your aunt would shake the whole thing to simulate an earthquake while I was inside it. We made such a commotion that your grandpa got furious and whipped both of us," my mother smiled as she tried to describe grandpa for me. I had just got back from the campus late at night while Momsen (as I do call my mother) bustled around preparing everything I needed for dinner. Suddenly the topic of grandpa surfaced and I was more than happy to hear it after a long day of hardship in tackling Communication Theory. It was sad to have the only remaining grandparent so far away from our life. Grandpa had been living in Switzerland for almost his entire life now. He spent the last ten years all alone in a tiny apartment. We visited him several times, back when my family was in France, but I was a toddler then and the only thing I could remember was an elderly man with white hair smiling incessantly at me. According to my mother Grandpa served as a diplomat for the Foreign Affairs Department and was posted abroad twice. The second time was in Switzerland at which time my mother was only eight years old. "It was such a perfect family time for us you know, so lovely, regardless for the whipping. I was lucky to have those precious moments, though only for a short while. The four of us, and the many dogs tagging along, lived a normal life," Momsen said. But life had its own topsy-turvy way. Grandpa had always been an extroverted kind of guy while Grandma, five years older, preferred to be at home and take care of the kids. Momsen said that Grandma was also a rather introverted type of woman. He had billions of friends and too little time to spend with his own family until one day he disappeared completely from Momsen's life. "It didn't happen so suddenly, but one day he just decided to be with her..." *Her' obviously did not refer to Grandma or his two daughters. I thought that it had to do with another woman, and my suspicions turned out to be quite right. "Grandma was devastated but somehow knew it was coming." I chewed slower than usual; simply to make sure what I heard was right. No comments slipped out of my mouth. I had always known that Momsen married late in her life, but I never suspected that Grandpa was behind all this. Dinner time was usually about how I had spent the day, what stupid thing I had done on campus and other tales of little me. But this time Momsen deserved the moment to make her mind flow back and refresh the memory of a long lost father - the deepest pain life had brought her. Grandma filed for a divorce that same year and brought Auntie and Momsen back to Indonesia, while Grandpa stayed in Switzerland with his new wife. Everything turned upside down. Rebuilding life in Indonesia sure was not easy. Problems with money came straight away because Grandpa did not provide any financial assurance to his two kids ever again. Living like strays, from one house to another, without any clear idea of how tomorrow would be. *What a change in life...' The three lived on charity from other family members, but things like brand new shoes and clothes were a pure daydream. Even providing a meal three times a day was difficult enough for Grandma. Momsen would have a very limited pocket money. "It was so little that I had to make hard decisions on how to spend it. I had always wanted to buy snacks at school like other children my age, but in turn, I had to walk home. And believe me, it was a long way back home," Momsen smiled. "So I hardly bought any snacks at school." It hurt me that instant because I remembered having thrown away many times the meal mother used to bring me when I was in elementary school. Instead, I chose to use up most of my pocket money to buy snacks from the street vendors. ___________________________________________________ Three generations in one picture. Javanese grandmother shares a joke with her children and grandchildren. Older people in Indonesia are well cared for and exercise considerable control in family affairs. Credit: WHO photo/UNICEF by J. Ling. (Click for link to source) ________________________________________________________ Then when Momsen reached twenty years of age, she never got the chance to go to college despite her great ambitions to continue her studies. So many things in her life could not be fulfilled simply because there wasn't enough money. But that was all so superficial; Momsen and Auntie had lost something more important during their childhood that I cannot fathom - a loving father. "Your Grandma, auntie and I developed our own kind of hatred toward him. I had difficulties when it came to being committed with guys. Not wanting to get married was a common thought," Momsen shakes her head. In that moment Father shuffled in to the dining room, grabbed a steamed potato, and disappeared again into his study. Momsen was on the verge of tears. "That's why I told him (referring to my father) when we first decided to tie the knot, that he may be poor and someone not well renowned, but he must never ever leave me behind for disloyalty. I can still tolerate the fact that I may not be his first priority compared to his career, but I could never accept another woman in his life." Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post