Comparing two single women's life..and end thereof

From www.anna morten.com

How one's life is meaningful, or useless, depends on how he/she lives their life. It's a choice, a free will, I reckon (with an exception of those who can't control their depression level due to biological reason beyond their control). I just read in Detiknews about a tragic story few days ago, when a woman, 49 years old, committing suicide by jumping off from Semanggi Flyover during busy working hour in the afternoon. She fell down, bumped into a Trans J bus' roof, hitting another car's roof, before finally kissing the street below the flyover. I couldn't stand to think of the pain she felt before she died.


Just today, there was an information revealed from a family member: a younger sister of her, who told the press that her sister killed herself because she has not been married at that age (49). Oh wow, I know that many people feel stressful about their single life. How frustrated a friend felt when she found herself almost run out of the biological clock; or how frustrated a friend to see her other friends put their children's pictures on the social media, either to show up, or simply just sharing the happy moments with their family and friends. I mean, perhaps it's normal to feel the pressure from our society to get married. But, whoa, could that be a reason for someone to commit suicide? This woman has proved so [unless her sister did not tell the truth to the police]. 


Let's move to a different scenario. This is a story of another single woman. About the same age, forty something. Single, never married. Working as a researcher or something. A friend's friend. She passed away too at similar age, between 45 or 50. Her whole life was spent to help people around her. She lived in a kampung, her neighbors were poor people, because that's all she could afford with her salary. If I'm not mistaken, she lived a very honest and humble life. When provided with opportunity to receive bribe or corrupt, she declined, and she rather lived at the level of her salary, not over. She helped the poor neighbor's child to go to school, she visited her friends during the difficult times, visiting the needy people, gave comfort to those she knew who were in sorrow. Just like she radiated love through her life, the love that she has abundantly. A life, worth to remember. Even long after she died because of cancer, her friends still talk about her humble and valuable life.


What's so different about these two's life? It is on the "Giving life a meaning" part, to their life. The difference is that the other woman has failed to give meaning to her life, while the other one has worked on it very well, and died in dignity. 

"The Insider" the movie, and the memories left behind

Before my attempt to have a nap this afternoon, I felt like I was having loads of ideas to write on this blog. But then I involved in quite a long thread of WhatsApp conversation with family and friends. After that, my eyes were still sore, but they refused to shut and I could not sleep at all, don't know why. I was too lazy to connect to internet and all the hassles of even turn on the computer. Nor television. 

After watching an almost 2 hours duration of The Insider, I was a bit affected and tired of watching anything audio visual. The story is about a whistle blower in a prominent and powerful tobacco company , namely Brown and Williamson in the US. Somehow, even in a very minuscule scale, I felt a sort of bond with the story. I myself have been in a sort of similar situation. I remember the accusation in the movie against Dr. Wigand: "poor communication skills".  I received the same accusation too when I was in Ox***. I was sent a Power Point presentation file from the Regional Director that explains how to communicate in a more 'polite', diplomatic way, not hurting or offense other people. So my problem was "poor communication skills" too. Helloooo...those who were offended by my 'communication' were those who were guilty of oppressing their subordinates, and when I 'communicated' it (without mentioning any names, without pointing out fingers to certain people), they felt offended. The plot is classic. Looking for the whistle blower's past mistakes, threaten the whistle blower, and the broken promise of protecting his/her identity.  An agreement of confidentiality, that's also what I've signed before I departed, -through my lawyers from a local Legal Aid Foundation.

Darn, I was just telling my story to a friend last night, and today I watched the movie that resembles my case. I thought I buried my story for quite long already. And suddenly it came out like resurrecting from the grave. Making me recall those days when I went round and round to the legal aid office for series of consultation, alone. When I stayed up late to type my case's chronology alone with the radio and television only accompanying me. When I was angry being told to stay off the office and they took my SIM card away and asked me to return all office's properties, and guarded me away from the office like a criminal. When I must face all the unjust trials that all ended up with only one kind of decision: that I was guilty. All the bitter memories I swept under my conscience. 

But no, I chose not to lost the battle of guts. Not to be defeated by the evil I fought. Not to be a bitter person that they expected me to be. I stopped, took breath, and by divine intervention, I got the scholarship that I'd been attempted to pursue for so many years. I believe, the divine power knew what time's best for me. HE did not give me the award in the previous, or the previous, or previous year, because those were not the years I most needed it. The year I most needed the scholarship was the year I'd just been tortured. The scholarship was meant to heal my wounds. I believe HE knew, HE just knew which one's best. It's not a coincident. So I must learn more and more, to trust everything in HIM. Every single thing.

A glimpse from the past: the power of a dream (part 2)

This is a different story with Part 1, but it shares similarity with Part 1: the place of origin. It's from Rote Island once again. But this time it's my Mom's story (and oh, incidentally, today's her 69th birthday!).

She went to school in Baa, the capital of the island because the family lived there. Her mother was a widow with 6 kids to raise and pieces of lands here and there. Her mother's father was a sort of elder of a small kingdom back then (Rote's already a small island, but there were ample of small small kingdoms there), and they actually had pieces of land, gold and jewelries, but because of the strong patriarchal culture of the Rotinese, most inheritances went under the management of the father's male family members (be it uncle, cousins, etc). And one cannot always expect those who have blood ties to be kind to the deceased's widow and children, so they got only small parts of the inheritance, and my mom's mother did not protest it, and always tried to make it enough with what she had to feed her children.

Almost similar to my dad's story, my mom also lost a parent in the very early year of her life. Her father passed away when she was around two years old, 1945, the same year the younger brother was born. Her late father was a local reverend, whose salary was paid by the Dutch government, so a kind of civil servant actually. The difference with my dad was that my mom's mother had never remarried after her husband passed away, unlike my dad's father who remarried and had seven (!) more children from the second marriage.

Massive poverty blanketed the population of Rote Island those days. Mom said that she and her friends those days have not so many choices for their daily diet, so they sometimes must looked for and ate those kind of edible maggots, which habitat is on the inside of tree trunk, as alternative protein source. The taste is, "..a bit sweet if you grill them well", she recalled. Ooouuch...... Those were not so good days, after WW II, the country was not yet consolidated into a 'real' country, political turmoil in Jakarta I suppose (1950s) and they lived in an island, a tiny little island thousands kilometer away from Jakarta, and politically not influenced, so it must have not on the priority list of the young nation of Indonesia. My mom also remember the first time she looked and tasted crystal sugar (I mean, sugar as we know now, to differentiate it with palm sugar or brown sugar which was the only sweetener she knew those days) with awe, admiring the crystal-like granules like it's something luxurious, because it's expensive and not everyone can have it at their house. Also when she touched ice at the first time (somebody must have just brought refrigerator to the island). She was like..wow ..so coooold... and also about the the plain rice porridge that they had to eat everyday, to save rice stock (I understood then why until now plain rice porridge is still her favorite!). And about many other "newly invented" things that we take for granted these days that were luxurious those days.

Anyhow, the schooling went quite well, despite the severe poverty her family sunk into, as the majority of the population was too. But there was no senior high school in the island that time. So after completing her junior high school (Grade 9), she had a pause. Her mother had a plot for her. Since she's the youngest daughter, her mother planned her to stay in Rote, get married and take care of her mother. My mom used to follow her older siblings to the paddy field and observed carefully how they worked. From planting season to harvest season. All traditional of course, no rice machinery to mill paddy, so all must be done manually. No tractor to work the soil either. She said that one day when she's working in the field, she said to herself, "I'm not gonna spend the rest of my life doing this. I don't like it and I don't think I'm strong enough to keep doing it", and wondering what she could do to be free from the work. Oh well, she cheated too sometimes, of course. Kids. Sometimes she ran away from the crowd who were going to work, and were playing somewhere else instead, and ignited some complains from her older sisters who worked hard in the end of the day.

Her 'saved by the bell' moment finally came to pass. Her older sister who worked as a teacher in the primary school nearby, got married with a Rotinese guy from Kupang (the town in other island, the province's capital). Since her sister's husband lived and worked in Kupang as a teacher, her sister moved to Kupang as well. She captured it as an opportunity. She was a bit panicked because her mother had an even clearer plan for her: matchmaking her with an officer who worked at the local synod's office so that she could get married soon, and to find her a job in that office too. She was horrified with the plan. What?? A Grade 9 graduate get married, at her age? Definitely not. She decided that she's going to escape the mother's plan. The academic year had commenced at that time, and she had not made it into senior high school yet since she stayed in Rote. So she got an idea. She told her mother that she missed her sister and was going to visit her in Kupang. Her mother allowed, knowing that it's just gonna be a visit. Without her mother's knowledge, she packed her clothes in jars that supposed to be filled with rice, palm sugar and other stuff for her sister. She runaway from home, from her mother's plan, in practice. It was around October or so, end 1950s (1958 perhaps). She persuaded her sister to look for school. And she could only get into SGKP, Sekolah Guru Kepandaian Putri, a pariah school, she said, that's why she was allowed to enroll: not all seats were filled in October. She did not like it, she liked maths and exact subjects, and she would prefer to go to general senior high school, but no regular school opened for enrollment anymore that time. At least going to school and not staying in Rote or get married young, she thought. So there she was.

Completing the school, she went to continue at the local university, where it was more costly. So she had to stay in at the house of one of the rich aunt from her mother side. A prominent family they were in Kupang at that time. They had a big house at the conjuction of Straat A in Kupang. Many young relatives who were studying in Kupang stayed there (pretty common those days, to stay in a relative's house if one's parents' live in kampung), and the husband and wife were so disciplined it seemed like the students (despite the family ties) went into slavery. They must wash the clothes and other garments (curtains, bed cover etc) with hands, hundred meters away from the house, walking (going with dry laundry was OK, mom said, but return with soaked laundry, was a nightmare!). Washing them with tapioca powder. And there could not be any dot of stain or dirt stayed in the garment, or the aunt would take it off from the clothes line and drop it off so they got dirty again, and they had to do the same thing once more. Frustrating. In addition, they must teach the children of the uncle and aunt at night, and the kids were not the smart ones, even more frustrating. They also had to flush the toilet after the family members (parents and kids) used it (yukks, disgusting!). Mom said she could get through all the troubles just because of her dream to be better educated, so she could have more choices, rather than simply one choice that her mother had chosen for her. That's the education at its heart, I conclude: to provide one with more than one choices. Cannot agree more.







 

Don't Analyze, Save Your Brain Cells

I love this city actually. But I don't really like to get into it too much. This is just one stop over another. Because if I have to use my brain too much thinking about how unregulated the city is, I will be in total disappointment. Everywhere you walk, you see things that can make you sick. And it's just what I am able to see, in my perspective, in my limited view. What more that I am not able to say, that is out of my view? Worse for sure, just read the newspaper and no need a genius to conclude.

Today, I got on to the public transport, sort of minivan (mikrolet), and found a long line of traffic jam in a conjunction near to the mosque in J-pdg. It was an unnecessary long line apparently, because that's happened simply because there were 3 pak ogah trying to "regulate" the motorists at the conjunction. There's traffic lights there for sure, but they took the initiative like there's no law at all. And people let them, because I was sure they were too tired to fight or protest. At about the same time there was a junkie jumped into the minivan and started his semi-threaten sentence that's typical to this kind: "I used to be a criminal, but I want to be a good person, so you'd better help by by giving me some money".. Oh gosh, I've seen this a lot in the bus. I have a personal policy on that: get off the vehicle the minute that kind of guy get in. So I jumped off. And then I found that out of sense congested road.

On my way back, I thought of the resemblance of this city (the capital of this nation state, which reflect the state herself) and an unlawful country, wild wild West, like in the cowboy movies. A jungle. Where there's no rule, where the most dare person wins. Where the most risk taker wins. Where the strongest wins. Where the weak, those who don't have much bargaining power lose. The winner takes it all, as ABBA says. Fragile state I must say, though the scholars may not agree because the phrase refers to something else. But I'd insist to use it. Or should I say weak state? Stateless?

My brain cells protested. I should not use them to think about these things. Period.


Pic from: swaberita.com

A glimpse from the past: the power of a dream (Part 1)

Just got back from my uncle's house in the southern outskirt of the Jak-city. He now lives with his wife alone, both of them in that pretty big house. All kids have left home and live on their own. Next month, on the 25th, my uncle will meet his 80th birthday. He doesn't look that old 'though. All his siblings have passed away, younger or older, includes my dad, who were 9 years younger than him who passed away 5 years ago, or even my other (step) aunt, who were 19 years younger than him, who passed away last month. He's been through a lot in his life. Most of his friends have also passed away.

I always like to talk with him. His voice resembles my late father's voice, very much. His face is also resembled my dad too. I remember when he was sitting in my dad's funeral that night, and some people were surprised, shock actually to look at him because of their resemblance. Anyway, I and my uncle talked about things like politics, health, education, quality of teachers, etc that night (most of my family and relatives were or are teachers, so criticizing the current educational system is like, well, our 'snacks' for chit chat :). Then he told me the story of how he went to school during those difficult days:

Note: one of the typical paddy field in Rote Island., I took the pic in 2010

He was born in 1932, and he went to school in Busalangga, a small village in Roti Island in 1938. The big family lived there by then. I recall my dad told me the story that his father's father 'migrated' to Busalangga from other 'county' (Termanu) and settled there. It's not clear what the great grandfather did, but the old Matheos (aka my grand father) worked as a teacher and a sort of preacher (Gospel teacher) there. Those days, primary school in that village had only up to 4th Grade. So in year 4 (1942), my uncle dropped out because of Japan invasion. He then became a sheep herder, guarding goats and sheep around the area for about a year off from school. It was probably unstable and hectic days until 1943 with all the transition and changes (including her mother's death in 1943 after giving birth to a baby girl who was also died after that, -my dad's younger sister, who also died soon after the mother passed away. Note: I got this story from my late dad, who was only 2 years old when these things happened).

One day, he walked too far with the herds, to the small town of Baa, the center of government and trading  activities (albeit the tiny scale). He saw and met some of his friends from Class 4, who were in Class 6 by then. He asked them how to go back to school, and even came to the teacher and asked about the possibility of joining the school again with his friends. The teacher said "We love to have you back to school, but sorry, you have to start at Grade 5, and not 6". He argued, "But my friends are in Grade 6?". "No, sorry but that's how the regulation is, take it or leave it". So he took it, started again at Grade 5 in 1944, I suppose.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the school had limited number of teachers, students and classrooms. So what happened was, Grade 5 and 6 were taught in the same room, with 2 blackboards but sharing teacher and room. So the teacher would have written questions for Grade 6 and Grade 5 in different boards, but students could look into each other's questions. So my uncle often did the work of Grade 6 students. The teacher finally let him counted as Grade 6, together with his other friends.

After "graduated" from primary school, he again took some time off, until he found that there was a kind of course in Baa, a course to be a teacher, two years in duration and again, he persuaded the teacher to join, but rejected in the beginning. But because they lacked students, he was allowed to join after all. He didn't really know what actually to do after that, and hope was diminished because he had no idea of what he had to do after completing that school, but becoming a village teacher.

Then came the enlightenment, a man who offered him a dream, an idea. That continuing education was possible for a villager kid like him. It's the old Rev. Octavianus (still young at that time, of course:). He said, "David, you know what, you can go to High School in Kupang (the province's capital) for free, if you become the best of your classmates". The idea was injected to his mind: "that if you're smart enough, you'll get the ticket out of here, out of this island". The spirit intoxicated him, he learned like crazy.

And well, out of  his friends' prediction, he got the best marks! He recalled that night, "My principal invited me to his house, to have a dinner with his family that night. We ate good food with his wife and children. Then he congratulated me and said, 'You'd better get prepared because you'll go to Kupang very soon'. And that meant only one thing: that I made it!". The principal handed him a certificate (? not sure I remember this part) and beautiful, seemed expensive pen, with a card (?can't remember this part either) that has the picture and autograph of Eastern Indonesia Republic back then (I suppose it was Mr. Sukawati, 1947, I just Googled it :). Then he was having an euphoria attack. Utterly excited with the winning sensation, he thanked the principal and kept running and running through the total darkness to his house, to inform his father that he gets it. I cannot imagine how he could do it (he could not imagine either :). I know the road from Baa to Busalangga, I've been there. It is dark as hell, It's total dark bring the stars and sky above so very close, like they're hanging and going to fall into the Earth. And I'm talking about year 2010 AD, meaning, not so long ago.  But back in the 1940's? I don't dare imagine the darkness, and with all the horror stories about the former battlefield along the road (among the ethnic sub-groups), which was common back then), I was almost convinced that he had a trance that night :).  He rushed, bumped into his father, hugged him tight, and reported what he'd just been told to his father.

Then the story ends.

Time was up, almost 9 pm and I must go back because I'd take a pretty long trip back to my kost from their house. I bade them goodbye and he walked me to the fence gate.

PS:
I know that later he continued to Kupang, and then Mataram and then to Bandung. That's why he ended up in Jakarta, becoming a public official at the capital's Education Office back then until he retired. I always wonder why he, a smart person like him, did not continue his study to at least bachelor degree (he just got his diploma for 3 or 4 years degree or Sarjana Muda). Apparently, I heard that it was because of his involvement in PNI that was a close ally to PKI, the communist party, at that time. After New Order, Suharto's era, he was banned from taking any opportunities I assume, which was common during the Suharto's regime.  People who have family ties with PKI were even totally banned from being public servants or anything close to public professions. That's the bad scar the autocrat made in our country's history.