Recount......

The Day When My Blue Sky Faded to Grey

     August 25^th, 2005 was the most grievous moment in my life. It had never crossed in my mind that all of a sudden, my dearest father would go away from my life. Two days before my father passed away, my mother and I were in Bandung to visit my aunt house. When I was talking with my mother in the porch of my aunt’s house, I asked my mother to call my father who worked in Cirebon to tell him about our plan to go to Jakarta on August 25^th to visit my relative’s house. It was really a brief conversation, but at that moment I felt there was something wrong when my father said that my mother and I should visit him in Cirebon right after we came back from Jakarta.

Two days after the last time I talked with my father on the telephone, my mother and I went from Bandung to Jakarta by bus. It was just a usual trip, both of us didn’t feel worry or felt uneasy about anything during our trip to Jakarta. But around three hours after we arrived in Jakarta, my mother’s phone was ringing. I thought it was my father who was calling, but it was not him it was actually my uncle (my father’s older brother). I didn’t know why I suddenly thought that something terrible would appear that time and after my mother said the word ‘passed away’ on the telephone my body was shivering.

After my mother hung up the telephone, I hurriedly asked her who passed away that time. And my mother just patted my head gently and said, in a soft and low tone, that my dearest father had died. Right after hearing what my mother just said, I knelt down to the floor and my tears started to flow down continuously from my eyes. My mother who looked at my condition, hurriedly hugged me tightly, but she didn’t shed tears because she tried as hard as she could to keep strong in front of me.

One hour later, my mother decided to rent a car to go to Cirebon. Along the way I didn’t know what I was feeling that time, it was really hard to believe and I didn’t want to believe it. Soon after my mother and I arrived in Cirebon, my uncle told us that my father has been carried to Central Java, his hometown. So, my mother, I, along with my mother’s family from Cirebon went to Central Java.

After spending around two hours, we finally arrived at my father’s family house in Central Java. I saw so many people there, but I felt my heart was really hurt when I saw a yellow flag and a corpse car. I really couldn’t hold my tears not to flow from my eyes. Then my mother and I were told to see my father, when I entered the room that where my father was. I widen my eyes when I saw my father was laying stiffly and covered with ‘kain kafan’ (a white cloth that is usually used to cover a dead person). In that short moment, my memories with my father were flashing before my eyes. From the time when my father and I were spending time, laughing, and playing together, until the last time I talked with him two days ago. I really didn’t want to admit that my father had passed away, and I just wanted to think it as a nightmare, and I wanted to wake up soon from this nightmare.

Then, after my father’s funeral finished, I approached my uncle and asked him the reason why my father passed away. Because at that time, my uncle was the only one who accompanied my father when he took his last breath. He said that, at that time my father suddenly collapsed in his office. Then my father’s friends took him to the hospital and called my uncle to go to the hospital. In the hospital, my father’s condition was getting worse and worse, but before he took his last breath, he said to my uncle, that he apologized to me, my brother, and my mother and he said that he really loves me and his family. After hearing that story, my tears were flowing down again from my eyes and I felt like my heart was breaking into pieces because when my father was dying I didn’t there to pray or to give him strength.

I think that was the most grievous moment in my life. Now I just want to keep the memories between me and my father in my deepest heart, and I also will always pray for him.

  

Originally Created by: Devi Yunitasari


devinitasari "20.19