Another episode where life comes full circle once again after 30 years orbiting the sun.
It returned to the same place and spot, with 30x better quality, be it the picture or the performance. It returned to the same place and same spot with completely new perspective.
Last Sunday wasn’t only about witnessing the 7 year old on the right very first offline performance but also (or more about) witnessing how much that 7 year old on the left has grown.
I owe this place more than I could think of.
This year has been one full of anxiety from the beginning of the year, until the very last day of October.
At the very end of October, a life of my beloved father-in-law also came to the end. We have known that this day would come soon since few days ago when he had been staying at the hospital for a week.
Last Friday I was stayed with him alone all through the day and couldn’t help feeling so uneasy. Friday in hospital ward brought back the memories ten years ago, the day I lost my mother.
The mood, the silence, it was tense.
Last Sunday became my last meeting with him. Me and the doctor cleaned her mouth while kept looking at the monitor box all the time.
Yesterday, the feeling was getting stronger. The numbers on the monitor slowly declined. All his boys gathered together.
I planned to go to the hospital knowing my mother in law was alone. Canceled the plan knowing the three brothers were heading there. Instead, I wrote a written plan about what to do just in case the time came.
Spent the whole last leg of afternoon writing and editing the plan.
After Isya, at the hospital, he did his last prayed lead by his second son, accompanied by his wife.
We were already in bed around 9 pm when the GP called that his condition was near to the end. He left the world peacefully on the arms of his wife.
My written plan finally shared to the whole family.
We packed our bags and went to the hospital. The two brothers got their chance to bath him for the last time before we brought him home. I accompanied my mother in law in the ambulance while the doctor drove the little girl to my aunt who luckily live nearby my MIL’s house.
My father in law was the quiet type. I might not have too many strong memories with him. Yet, I woke up at 3 am and write this, because he is important enough for me to remember the details of what happened on the day he left.
Ten years from the painful 2012, the pain of losing a parent returned.
The grief degree might not on the same level with one felt in 2012, but the passing of my father in law left as well important reminder like 2012 gave.
I’ve known him since 2002. Through stories. Through the narratives from one of his son.
Ten years from 2002, I had the chance to know him in person, through the law.
I found that we hardly know someone, no matter how long you‘ve ‘known’ him. There were many times when I found the story I heard for the past ten years didn’t match the reality I experienced myself.
But one thing that I’ve been witnessing for the 20 years of knowing him, same relationship with the same person could never stay the same all the time. It will grow to whatever side you give the most effort.
I am beyond happy to see how the narrative heard from the doctor 20 years ago was completely different to what I’ve been experiencing and have witnessed since 10 years ago until yesterday.
I found the truth from the saying, “if you don’t resent your parent enough, then they don’t raise you well enough”.
As an adult who has the freedom to choose and decide, It’s completely on your hand whether to turn the resentment into new contentment or endless disappointment.
The post has been on type-delete-type-delete mode for many times.
It’s much harder finding the right angle to write since there are lots of them whenever death is the topic, than choosing the best picture to use, since not many available and could properly describe the feeling.
Early dawn, 3.40 am, at the bedroom of my aunt.
Last weekend was too loud. Normally, we had loud Saturday but quiet and peaceful Sunday. Did major cleaning at home then went around to furniture and interior show rooms nearby and out of town on Saturday. Spent the whole Sunday visiting in-laws and hosting a family in the apartment. My social battery had reached below zero that Sunday.
Monday was not that loud but pretty intense. Morning walk after school delivery reached 9000 something steps and 7km, stopped by few shops for light groceries and went home while doing some weight training by carrying all those groceries in the bags.
Picked the little girl from school, went home and running the washing machine twice, cleaned the bathroom and many more. When the spirit came, it was unstoppable. Until next time, then.
When I saw this girl slightly wasn’t like her usual self this morning, I offered the option to rest for today. She loves school so much and always against the idea for having online lesson (the school offered hybrid) whenever I wake her up in the morning.
After set of morning routines as usual, I asked her once again, and without too much saying, she agreed. It was rare indeed and showed she really meant it.
It’s been a long time since we experienced a slow morning at home together during weekdays.
It was indeed much needed short break after two days of loud and intense weekend and quite busy Monday. No morning rush, no dementor traffic. Just two of us doing each other thing leisurely.
Little girl enjoyed down time with her library book and some movies. Big girl enjoyed a morning short nap then went to dining table to finish a bowl of leftovers tongkol suir kecombrang and tempe goreng. All done in complete silence.
Sink wasn’t cleared from dished as early as usual, floor wasn’t cleaned as scheduled. This morning, we did what we wanted to do first, not what we needed to do as usual.
It felt refreshing and truly charging having this kind of sloth morning after a while.
On today’s #dldawarenessday.
DLD was her first diagnosis. Given by the board at her school which explained this condition thoroughly.
Years of longing to understand so many questions finally answered in one October morning.
Every single trait matched.
Have you ever felt a big relief and utterly heartbroken at the same time?
That was exactly how it felt when I was standing long and quiet in front of that board. The trembling hands reached the phone, snapped all the information on board, sent it to her dad and became the longest conversation of that day.
Days after would never be the same anymore.
In spite of the mixed feeling, still, an answer means a closing, which was truly what I needed.
It also means more new doors to be opened, more reasons to learn and know more about this.
Registered as the first DLD Ambassador from Indonesia, registered to NAPLIC conference and listened to more people with the same conditions, read and bought available books and articles about this.
Along the way, more different diagnoses came for the past three years. It felt big and hard at the beginning, but, it shrank as time went by. Always.
But, DLD will always be a defining moment. DLD is lifelong condition that the person will grow with it forever. But, it doesn’t matter.
Through DLD I understood a diagnosis was important to understand someone better, but, never to define what she can’t or can do.
DLD is my ultimate reminder, you can do everything, give your best, and there are still so many things outside your control. Blame yourself a little bit and move on.
What makes the difference is how you respond to whatever shit life throws at your face. You have that enough power on that.
After so many exposures and continous reading about DLD and many other neurodevelopmental conditions, I began to understand that they don’t lack in anything but, just simply different.
That’s it.
Many times this is seen as a problem because people are not comfortable about differences, let alone accept it.
That’s why what should be done first is raising the awareness.
Just like everyone, with or without DLD, to function well, what we need is support.
That’s it.
When some people say a child is not an investment, I kind of disagree.
A child is indeed one. All the time, energy, resources spent in raising one, she is indeed an investment whose return would only visible in the long term.
Just like those graphics in our investment app, some periods are bloody red while some other time are smiley green. Yet, you don’t stop topping up when it’s red and not overly joyful when it’s green, because nothing is permanent in the short term.
But, in the long term, the purpose of the daily, weekly, monthly or yearly investment is to achieve our goals, whatever they are.
The tricky part about investment : there’s no guarantee that you’ll gain, and there’s a huge possibility you might end up with a loss.
But, this is why you should still invest. Because, when you do nothing, it’s clearly a loss. No gain.
By doing something, we’ll allow ourselves to learn, to find a way, and try to enlarge our chance to gain something in the future.
Parenting is just like a bussiness which needs clear goals so we know where we head to. A system how to achieve those goals, constant evaluation along the way.
The picture above was a short meeting done few months ago that had been planned for weeks to have all the people on the screen from three different time zones to sit and talk about one little girl.
All these people invested their time and energy to discuss what the next goals for her therapy in the upcoming year.
We’re blessed to meet such incredible people who are willing to help us raising the little girl with their kindness and expertise.
Dr Phua who spent her Saturdays to do the tests that no single centre in Jakarta could provide (as far as my research tells). Mr Philip who spent his precious weeknd to have weekly session with little girl.
We fully understand how ‘expensive’ their time is, until we really had a hard time to pay it, in literal meaning.
This might be subjective and only based on my experience, but we prefer pay all the teachers in advance, so they don’t have to wait for what they deserve for their work.
When with the local ones I need to be annoying about how they do their job (as written here), with the foreigner ones, we need to be really fussy about how to pay them. It took us four months until we finally received the bank detail for weekly session we have, and no response at all for the service we received from the other one.
This girl is one of the luckiest (special needs) kids indeed.
For every investment she has received, we hope it would be enough for herself and hopefully, there are much more left to share and pay it forward.
Amin.
(One of the writing that has been sitting for months in the draft and released once a right book at the right time found me).
We arrived early for today’s swimming training. It was dark and cloudy but not yet raining.
An hour before the schedule, the coach had texted whether we would be there. I said yes while her tone showed that she expected the opposite.
When we arrived, the coach asked us to wait. I replied ‘ok’ shortly and unhappily.
Why should we wait? until the rain came?
Few minutes after waiting pointlessly, I asked her to start. We could stop anytime if needed, but just started first.
I didn’t mind a bit of rain, it wasn’t the first time they did training under the rain. But the coach made me question my self, “is it really okay?”
When in doubt, I always return to the kid,
“Be, is it okay? We might have heavier rain later,”.
The training kept going as usual, under heavy to light rain. Had a short break once when the thunder was too loud. Then, resumed it again until the end.
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For the past two years, I have already transformed into that annoying parent who doesn’t care about what people think, and strongly express my concerns. Especially while dealing with the local teachers.
But, l’ll make sure all the teachers see how serious and committed we are to the schedule. We always arrive in time (Not ON TIME), close to never cancel the lesson, pay them in advance, and make sure she is being focused in every lesson.
It paid off.
At the beginning, the 5.30 am Quran teacher often canceled the lesson. For many reasons. I didn’t say much on this. Why? It’s hard to find one like him, and Quran is important.
People would think I was crazy to make my daughter do a lesson as early as 5.30 am. But, actually, this is what we do daily on our own. I just replaced it with a proper and qualified teacher twice a week so she got another standard other than mine.
Few months went by, he rarely canceled any classes. Whenever he couldn’t make it, he would give the replacement day right away and I never said we can’t. Weekday or weekend, it doesn’t matter since Quran is the only lesson and schedule that is doable in any days, anywhere, as long as it is at 5.30am.
Recently, it’s been few weeks since I noticed he added more minutes to the lesson.
The piano teacher (the Indonesian one) was teaching her for only 10 minutes out of 20, on the second meeting and it made me write a long email to the music school principal.
We cleared the misunderstanding as soon as possible and she totally changed right away.
Ready before 7 AM (I didn’t ask, she offered it). Forty minutes lesson often turned 60.
There have been a lot of national holidays on Saturday, and she always offers to keep having the lesson online, since the school is closed on national holiday. Again, I always said yes. I won’t ask, but when she offers it, I’ll take it.
Judging from my experience who always accompanied this little girl for any offline lesson before pandemic, same people will act differently according with whom they deal with.
In Indonesia, many children are either accompanied by their nanny or granny. There was this therapist in one of the therapy centers in South Jakarta.
When it was the little girl schedule, she started and finished on time. But, whenever it was the next child’s turn who went with her nanny, she started late and finished early.
I noticed this when the little girl was having another session at the same time with another therapist while that kid had session with the therapist mentioned above.
When the little girl had started, she hadn’t. When the little had not yet finished, she had. After the session, my explanation from the therapist would be long and detailed. While that little girl, would be short and brief.
It happened all the time.
This is why it is important to set our own standard. Especially when you live in a country where being on time, discipline, and strongly committed to the schedule is not a common practice. By setting clear standard, others will understand what kind of student they deal with and act accordingly.
Sometimes, it’s taxing, being annoying. Why we should even fight for what we deserve according to what we pay. But, there’s no other way to get it than being loud and clear, then so be it.
Oh, the little girl’s answer to my question typed in bold letters above,
“It’s ok. It’s just rain,” she said.
The best time of the day happened in the dark and quiet room accompanied by the sound of air purifier.
Time to have solo conversation about things inside the head. Time to talk to the One who takes care all affairs. Time to ask for some strength to deal with anything that comes today. Time to take as much as deep breath before running the morning sprint.
Whenever the self-doubt thought is visiting, questioning whether it’s the right thing to do, an instant answer of yes heard in the head.
“This is the sowing period. It supposed to be hard and messy. It takes patience trimming this and that, adding some fertilizers here and there, setting the environment now and then, to make sure the plant grows well. Don’t be confused and let the sowing period slip away because you want early harvest. The reaping period will come when it’s ready”.
I wish the early morning silence could stay longer a little bit.
But, one should do what s(he) suppose to do.
Time to turn on light and start the day.
Three valid indicators that can be used to measure someone’s patience :
1. When the internet doesn’t work.
2. Feeding an infant from the beginning until the end, three times a day, for a whole year.
3. Teaching your own children. About Anything.
Hopefully, no one has to deal with all those three at once.
Observing what happens around myself and the closest family since a long time makes me rarely impressed about people.
I can be impressed by so many little things about nature, but not people.
It maybe because people could behave so differently when they’re outside around strangers and when they’re around the ones who should matter the most.
Rarely impressed with any achievements, titles, or story about flashy careers, but always more curious about the real life behind that.
Being a mother 8 years ago made me realize that there’s no such thing as balance between work and life. Just like a see-saw on the playground, it doesn’t work when the see-saw stays on the middle.
To make it work, it should go up and down continuously. It means when you put your focus and energy on one thing, it would be on the high while the other would be on the lower part.
That was what happened on the first year of motherhood. I thought working part time while taking care the baby myself was possible. But, as soon as she arrived, life pushed me to choose without middle ground.
It was unimaginable before that I should do my resignation no longer after she came. Because I had no choice and I had to choose. Knowing what’s important helped a lot in making such decision.
Luckily, I still had my second work which was less demanding. But, weirdly, at certain point, I came to realize that I even had to compromise on this. Not completely gave it up, but to reduce the working hours significantly. Nothing prepared me that taking care a single tiny human being could take so much energy.
I hate not having enough money to afford more than my basic needs, but, turned out I couldn’t stand more how I behave behind the spotlight when I was too tired doing things with the spotlight.
I realized that being under the spotlight, where I have to behave, dressed and talked properly in front of people left me with close to zero energy when the light was off.
The result was I became even more short-tempered than before and projected to one who didn’t deserve it.
Reducing the time under the spotlight helped a lot. I might have less money, but I had time and space to do the more important things that I had to do, and I could sleep at night without the lingering guilt on my head. It was priceless.
Observing closest people around me, I found quite similar pattern. Those who are nice to other people outside could be such a monster to their people inside. Those who are seen as a good family man in other’s point of view were the dishonest ones to their own family. Those who seems to excel much on the work are the same people who tend to neglect the children and their house is messy. Those who seem could afford things to display outside are the same people who could be so ignorant when it comes to pay their own meal on family dinner.
Accidentally found this Clip and it feels so relatable with this post.
How true the hadist from the Prophet that said, “ The best of you are the best to their families, and I am the best to my family”.
Thus, I couldn’t help taking pinches of salt for every flashy display about something. Knowing how ones do behind the spotlight becomes a better way to judge a character.
The real one.
Mind the Gap is a daily phrase heard in London Rails.
In literal meaning, it’s a reminder to be careful about the gap between the train and the platform.
In deeper meaning, it’s also a good reminder to deal with life.
There will always be a gap between life we currently have and one that we aim to, between dreams inside the head and the heart and many obstacles to achieve them, and many more.
It could be one of the things that makes us wake up excitedly everyday, because we have gap(s) to work on and it’s nice to close the gap as much as possible.
Whenever my heart wants to take the easy way, being complacent instead of consistent, duck out from any commitments instead of showing up, the brain always tells me to mind the gap.
Based on years of experiences riding many kind of public transportations, it’s always easier and it feels safer to step and to move between the ride and the platform when gap is narrow like ones in MRT or most of London trains than when the gap is too wide (which is quite scary for me) like most of TransJakarta or KRL platforms.
Such a motivational post on this half busy-half lazy Sunday.
A Penny for My Pensieve 