As I already described from my long past story.
I was forced to cope with abandonment in my early years.
If I try to trace my memories back to those days. I can vaguely explain of what I felt back then, a truckload of emotions storm my younger self that might not be easy to describe nor to cope at once back then.
Confused, scared, self-doubt, self-blaming, anger, some more confusion, sadness, grief, and fear.
Sure, separation is never a pleasant experience. Even more so if the separation had no proper closure, never really had a proper closure, for my case.
The separation I'm discussing about here, are two separate event, three, if I may say.
The first one, occurred around year 2000, as per usual, my dad is temperamental and so quick to took action rather than think wisely.
The case was fired by jealousy.
Back in those years, my Dad went bankrupt for the first time, after trying his hand at a small business, a joint printing house with a business partner he called colleague, whom turns out cheated him on the business, making him lost the deal, and also the company.
At the same year, my mom opt. for some side job, selling food at night, a foodcart and stuffs.
Then the work was passed on to her aunt, and mom start another one, renting a storehouse with her cousin, making the same stuff basically, but with a landed store rather than a cart at night.
Here's the deal turned the wrong way.
I have to admit, my mom, in her late 30's sure still kept her appeal, and moreover, she tend the café if you may call it, at day together with her other aunt(from my mother side she has 4 aunts and 1 uncle, 1 lived in Semarang, we basically lost contact with her family due to technology back then, while 1 aunt lived in Bengkulu whose daughter is the cousin that start the café business, and the other 2 is unmarried and stay in Padang, the older aunt is the one with her currently tending the café, while the youngest aunt is the one taking over the foodcart business).
People back then sure had plenty kids, and it's really bring me headache to remember each and every face and their addressing title.
Okay, let's return to the reminiscing story.
At the so called café (basically it's an eatery, where at day they hire a cook to prepare the meal, while at the same time there might be the same menu from the previous foodcart business-burgers, hotdog, etc., and some beverages).
Now, here come the married old guy named R.
These so called new friend of my mom, turns out keeping another facade, this ungodly man is already having a family, and also a son around my age, still legally married, yet, try his luck to flirt with my mom.
And you may guess it right, my mom was swooned by the sweet whispers of this fat old man.
My mome is 32, and this old man is in his mid 50's it's unthinkable for me, even to this day.
The so said affair is kept hidden as they try their best to hid them. But there is no secret kept hidden perfectly, even more so, in the little Chinatown of Padang, a small town to begin with, and around the premises of Chinatown, an even smaller scope of an area. The youngest aunt of my mom oftentimes saw the two of them from afar, riding together to and fro, and the secret meetup and little dates start to be more frequent.
There is this story in Mainland China, that story about a green hat, that become an idiom to this day.
The story goes like this, a women cheated from her husband, and to hid their misconduct, the women sew a green hat for her husband, as a message for her cheating partner, that that day is safe for him to pay her a visit. So this poor husband unaware of his wife's unfaithful act, wear the hat that his wife doned for him that day, while unaware that the very gift is actually a message to fool him behind his back.
And that very idiom, is the case for my dad at that case. My dad, facing bankruptcy, turned to his older sister, asking for a job, and he got the job, sadly, needing him to work outside the town often.
All during the absent from town, those dates, those pick-up to God knows where and God forbid, doing whatever not supposedly did, by which they did.
Then the report came from her youngest aunt to my dad, that she caught this adulterers hand in hand this older married man dropping my mom off his car somewhere ahead her house so nobody could suspect them, but unluckily, they got caught red-handed.
And the nightmare came. My dad is blinded by jealousy trying to counter my mom, and my mom is keeping her silence, which trigger the anger even more, and the barrage of hits came, and the man R, fanned the escape.
It was him who brought my mom out from the house, and gave her money, to run away from Padang, toward Pekanbaru.
The year was 2001, somewhere around July, that morning, my first grade of junior highschool me is preparing for my first day at school, my mom, unlike the usual, accompanied me till the fence, and the completely unaware to what will befall me that evening, just kick the pedals of my bicycle and waved at her as I ride to school.
As the day goes usually, I return from school, and head to the café, which is no longer under my Mom's management, and completely under her older aunt's care now. I usually spend my day there, or perhaps in the pedestrian, in some playstation rental place, or maybe somewhere else, riding the bicycle all afternoon, then heading home.
How completely astonished I am that evening, by 6pm, the house is completely dark, and nobody is answering the door. I returned to her youngest aunt's place, telling her, that the home is empty, nobody answer the door, and we try to ring the land-number. I pressed the number, and waiting for someone to pick up the call, nobody answered.
Then the sudden drop of news, to me, she confesses, that back at the day, she saw my mom, picking my sister from preschool.
So, we conclude the assumption that my mom's is running away from home that day.
A bomb was dropped in my mind that evening.
Empty, totally nothing can be said sanely, but things storming in my mind, of how is she now, how about my sister? Where are they? Are they safe? Why? And why? And another why? And lastly why...
The next morning, I think I was excused from school, or was it I skip school and spent the whole day in some playstation rental place, of that, I'm not sure, but what I can recall, is, my mind is blank, that I felt that I don't think I'm in the mood for school.
Long story short, somewhere around the following months, she rings back to Padang, and the call managed to be traced back to Pekanbaru, my dad's siblings help using their connection to find out her whereabouts and a plan were made to pick her up.
Me and dad, drove the L-300 Colt pick-up that he used to drove for his work, toward Pekanbaru, 15 hour drive from Padang, there was no highway in Sumatra, so you drove from one town to another, across the hill and over the mountains, just like those old Gospel songs, and we arrived at late night in Pekanbaru, in the house mom rented.
I remember crying the moment I saw her, the 3 months of confusion gone, vanish into thin air, and tears start flowing unhindered for the first time. Months of asking unanswered questions suddenly need no answer at that time. I only able to asked her to return to Padang, to home. Nothing else.
My sister, Nana, is long asleep, I believe it's 10 pm. When we arrived. So, I directly went to sleep. But somewhere in the dead of the night I got awaken by the yelling voice across the room. A phone ringing in the dead of the night, and my dad's voice answered the call, and yelling start sounded in the house. It was R, calling to warn my mom that my dad is heading there, only to be answered by my dad himself.
I fell asleep as my head is still heavy, and wake up the next morning, Nana is already went to school, so I didn't met her. We ate breakfast, mom brought me to bookstore, and bought me two books, Harry Potter was the best seller at that time, so, those two books are Harry Potter's novel.
She said, it was an early birthday present, as my birthday is soon ahead(in a few days, perhaps two days before the birthday).
We returned to Padang in the afternoon, and arrived home around early dawn, that is the first time I'm stepping my foot back at home after 3 and a half months being tossed amongst my relatives here and there.
My Mom's returned to Padang around November, a month after,
Around 1 December, they arrived at the youngest aunt's house, at that time, my great-grandmother is in her dead bed, just a day befor her passing.
They chatted all night long till late at night, and the next day I remember they went back to home while I still staying at great grandma's house. Btw, my real grandma is still alive and well, but since back then, she is not quite there all along my childhood, they are somewhat distant and unfamiliar for me. The rest of her sister's(my grandmother, my mom's mom), also not quite in good term with her, as my mom's is raised in her grandma's house(that great grandma that is passing the next day after my mom's return).
The next day, my great grandma passed away in her 90's, it's been quite a while since she's unable to walk, and spent most of her day on the bed, and finally she passed away.
I did have a deep inkling with her, calling her "Emak"(a traditional way of calling grandma), if I'm recalling it, it's still quite funny because I adressed my mother's aunts and other elders from my mother's side with the way my mom addressed them, even to this day, the youngest aunt that supposedly I called grandma, is still adressed by me using the pronounce that my mom's used for her.
A quick trivia, according to the ancestry, those Chinese descendants in Padang which dominated by Hokkien ethnicity, mixed the Minang wordings with their ancestry titles, so for the case of the youngest aunt of my mom, is addressed as an "I'ie" meaning aunty from mother's side, and because she is the youngest from the other aunties, there is a Minang words behind her title, "cik" from the word "kecik" meaning "small" in Minangnese, so the correct translation is "small aunt", so back to my habits of copying how my mom called her elders, I still call her "I'cik" to this day, and "Emak" that supposedly called "A'co" (the Hokkien pronounciation for calling the parents of grandparents) which is her mom, who passed away that day, is quite a dearing old lady.
I recalled during her last days, she already troubled with seeing, and moving about, and my "I'cik" is busy working, so her toenails had been long neglected.
I'cik asked her, "Ma, let me trimmed your toenails." But she refused.
Then I'cik try to coax her, saying that why not I do the job, as I was her most beloved out of all her other great-grandchildren.
I was laying on the floor, watch tv, and I readily agree to do it.
And I repeated the question. "Mak, let me cut your toenails"
I mispronounced the wording by mistake, my tongue slipped, and instead I said let me cut your toe, and by which she strongly refused in an instant.
Emak is strongly against eating meat, in particular, beef, because she said in her younger years she watched a cow crying during a Eid Adha, a holy days in Islam where the Muslims slaughtered cows, and other animals and shared the meat for the poor.
If you may ask, what was those days like? Bloody...
Indonesia, you see, is populated by somewhere around 270 million people, and nearly 230 million is Moslem, so, as the biggest Islam believer by population statistics in the world, you can imagine already, how many mosque, your local mosque behind the house, or somewhere in the next alley, or somewhere else half a kilometre from your house, they all did the same processions, butchering cattles and other lifestocks.
They were everywhere, and it's even the usual headline news for at least a few days afterwards, about some cow panicking and escaping from the mosque and struck some random cars on the street, or the local residents being chased by a panicking cow, etc.
That's why Emak is avoiding beef in particular.
And she, is gone the next day... Around 3.40 pm, as I heard her whispering voice from across the public comics library, only to return home one hour later and to be met with her still warm no longer breathing body..
As you already know, I'm pretty intuitive by birth, if you try to avoid the term psychic, then intuitive is the word. And I also already in the process of learning magicraft somewhere around that year, so, yes Emak passed away at 4.30, and I heard her voice whispering behind my ears, as if she called me by my childhood name "Shua.." (my name is Joshua as you all know, but olden days people can't pronounce J, so they change it into a Y, while most relatives called me Yo, only Emak called me 'Shua', unique only to her).
I sat next to her slowly cooling body all night long.
I cried and cried and cried, asking her to return, and such, while the other relatives come and goes, others busying folding the joss paper into a tael shape, yes, Emak is Confucians, she were burried with Tao procession, despite in her later years she is eager to go to church, despite we never really know what she believed in.
I sat beside her body for hours, and hours, and feeling the unbearable loss for the very first time, even more than the runaway case 3 and a half months prior.
Emak is having her personal inkling with me in my heart, I wonder why, but her passing is striking me different, even more than the passing of her oldest son Ku'kong 3 years prior.
Ku'kong, is the oldest son and the only surviving son of Emak, Emak had 11 child, 5 among them are either stillbirth or died during infancy, only 6 of her child grow to old age. Ku'kong is the oldest, and he work in Emak's house, selling lottery numbers for the qongzi (a kind of Chinese brotherhood slash company which back in the day deal with commodity exports to Mainland China, imagine WongFeyHung movies and imagine the IpMan Chinese community, that's the vibe of a qongzi minus the actions martial fights), he ride his ancient bicycle from out of town, to the Chinatown area(from somewhere in the northern Padang to the southeasternmost of Padang, around 13-15km across on an old bicycle, times 2 each day).
My fond memories with him, is, he often seated me on his bike and rode the bike toward the Chinatown market, to some coffee stall he frequent, bought me snack, candies, and suchalikes.
He got ill, and collapsed one day, and my dad and other relatives forced him to get treated, which he stubbornly refused.
Until one day, he fell ill, very ill, and even went into coma for a few days, when he woke up on hospital bed, he insisted to return home, and so he returned, and passed away the moment he arrived at Emak's house, breathing his last breath the moment his eyes met her.
I think I already told you the story about my dream a day after his burial, him repeatedly mentioning numbers to me in the dream which turns out to be the winning lottery number the next day. Yes, that's Ku'kong (ku from N'ku-the addressing title for uncle from mother side, and kong from n'kong-grandpa).
Death is inevitable to anyone, we all dies in the end. And death, is different, even more so, because we never know when they arrive.
And oftentimes, a goodbye is even too much to ask from death.
A parting is a parting, yet a parting still contain some hope of meeting again in the future, but death, is a kind of parting where the next meeting will be much longer than we can expect.
It's still a loss, and more to be frank about it, it left a hole inside me in particular, a hole that only the person's leaving can fill back.
They leave the realm of the living, and in most case, we never say goodbye, that make the loss even painful.
......
2 weeks after Emak's passing. Mom got into a heated arguments again, and she got hit by dad.
Still because R.
This time, she ran away completely cutting contacts, for a whole six months, no news.
That was the days where I return to home with dad only to be met with him opting to occult magic, hanging my mom's unwashed clothes (the last clothings she wore before running away), nailed to the bedroom wall upon which he lid an oil candle every night. And to me misspokenly confessed by asking about the possibility of me having some chest pain or some prickly sensation around my heart, and if yes, then that's the price for this rituals to summon my mom's return.
Mind you, spare me some leeway, I was 12 at that time and I hate him for ruining my early teenage years. He hits me often, and now he hit mom, causing her to run away, this is the second time in a row now, and now? What's this? A dark magic with me as a paying fee? Oh no, what a life isn't it?
And not to say, she is still not returning home, even after all those lunacy.
I am forced to cope with all those dramas. Let call them dramas, as they were too surreal to believe in, as if my life is some soap operas from the television programme.
Y'know what?
Lemme cut you some slack.
I didn't sleep while writing this, I started typing at 4.02 am. And it's 7.23 am now, funny how time flies and how slow I typed those memories down.
Lemme conclude this long overdue story.
I am left with something inside my heart.
You can say, that I react differently with an abandonment, toward rejection, as I felt, unconsciously, that all my life, I was rejected to and fro.
I'm not trying to overly dramatising my lifestory by saying they left me with a scar. Nah, none of such.
But rather, there are gaps, that I don't know how to fill them up with and again, how to do it.
They don't quite easily digested nor they were soon to be understood, I am left in a stupor if I may argue. Of trying to dip my fingers in, but not quite sure of what I'm trying to do with doing so, and not quite understand what is this feeling I'm feeling at that time.
Aand magic, occultism and stuffs. They made matter worst.
But of that, I'm not going to talk about it, not now.
I have this constant fear, developed from those experiences, they may not necessarily be trauma. But they sure hindered me for quite to a certain degree.
Fear, of one day, the sky will crumble once again, yet this time, no one will rise to pick up the debris.
Of one day, people that I cared and loved, will left me. Be it left me away due to things, or left me for good, meanings, passed away.
Oh, c'mon, with how far I delved my mind in philosophy and the quest for awakening, of course I accept the truth that we all gonna die one way or another, sooner or later.
But when it occurred to me,
I think I might take it personally, and different at it also.
I don't know how to see it for now, but let me put them out in the open for now, so when I read them again, I hope I might be grown enough to think of a solution of how to face them one day.
