Intertwined

Different colours and textures of threads woven together - that's how I'd describe my family.

Born from an Ambonese father and a Chinese mother, married to a Moslem Javanese man - diversity has simply become a daily reality to me.

In my family you'd find different shades of skin colours - white, black and everything in between.

Different ethnicity and race - Ambonese, Chinese, Javanese, Menadonese, Balinese, you name it.

Different religions - Christian, Catholic, Moslem, Hindu. If you trace our family tree far enough, I wouldn't be surprised if you find Buddhists too.

And that's how I've come to learn a thing or two about tolerance.

Tolerance - is a value we need to demonstrate in our daily actions. When it becomes a slogan, something we merely preach about, it evaporates into thin air.

Tolerance - something I hope Darrel will absorb, given the diverse nature of our family.

Tolerance - a message we ought to pass on to our next generation.

In the hope that a decade from now violence in the name of religion, ethnicity and race will be something unheard of in this country.

After all, like every other important things in life, tolerance starts within the family. Shall we begin?

What's your word?

Creative Theraphy asked: What's your word or focus for 2011?

I answered:

Free....

To love

To learn

To explore

To make mistakes

To forgive, myself and others

Free....

From angers of the past

From toxic relationship

From the need to control absolutely everything

Free....

To be as I am.

Ingin Selesai

Saya baru saja membaca tulisan Riana, salah satu blogger favorit saya, yang tulisannya selalu saya tunggu-tunggu, karena beliau selalu berhasil membuat saya tercengang dan takjub.

Di awal tahun ini, beliau menulis:
Ultimately, saya ingin meninggal di tahun ini. 1432H, atau 2011 M. Ini adalah saat yang tepat untuk saya pergi. Saya merasa tugas saya sudah selesai. Atau mungkin tepatnya, sebagian besar tugas utama saya, sudah selesai. I have passed along all my torches. Saya tidak sedang bersedih apalagi putus asa. Justru sebaliknya, saya sedang berada di puncak rasa syukur. Entahlah, saya tidak dapat menjelaskannya. Namun jika Allah membolehkan saya memilih, sekarang inilah saya ingin menghadapNya. Lagi pula, saya sudah terlalu rindu padaNya, juga pada Ayah dan Mama.

Saya terdiam.
Damn... kalau Allah memanggil saya hari ini atau tahun ini,
sudah pasti saya akan gemetar dan mulai tawar menawar....
"Jangan dulu, Tuhan, Darrel masih kecil,
masih banyak yang ingin saya capai,
dosa saya masih banyak... dan sebagainya.
All of which adds up into one big conclusion:
Saya belum siap, belum selesai dengan semuanya.
Jangankan selesai, separo selesai pun belum.

Sekali-kalinya saya "berani" mengantar nyawa
adalah pada hari Darrel terbaring dengan wajah membiru
dan nafas satu-satu di St. Carolus.
"My life for his, Lord" - sebuah litani yang saya ulangi sepanjang malam,
karena pada saat itu saya sudah tidak mampu lagi mencari kata-kata untuk berdoa.
Sesungguhnya itu pun bukan keberanian,
lebih tepat usaha putus asa saya sebagai manusia untuk tawar menawar dengan nasib.

Allah yang Mahabaik menyembuhkan anak saya,
dan saya masih berdiri di sini sampai hari ini.
Saya tidak tahu kenapa.
Terkadang saya membayangkan mungkin Allah tersenyum geli sambil berkata,
"Nak, bereskan dulu dosa-dosamu sebelum datang kepada-Ku."
Mungkin, saya tidak akan pernah tahu.

Setelah Darrel sehat, saya,
si manusia bodoh yang mudah sekali lupa ini,
kembali lupa akan Sang Khalik.
Lupa beribadah, lupa bersyukur, lupa berbuat baik....

Saya begitu sibuk menikmati hidup saya
yang penuh tawa dan keceriaan seorang anak -
seakan hidup saya tidak punya batas waktu.

Dengan bodohnya saya lupa kalau segala hal,
termasuk hidup saya,
bisa diminta kembali oleh-Nya, kapan saja.

Lupa kalau segala yang saya nikmati saat ini,
hanya mungkin terwujud karena belas kasih-Nya semata.

Membaca tulisan Riana, saya diingatkan,
saya masih jauh dari selesai.

Masih banyak kekurangan yang harus saya bereskan,
dari kekeras-kepalaan saya,
mulut saya yang selalu sejuta kali lebih cepat dari otak saya,
hingga hal-hal yang tersimpan jauh di dalam hati:
amarah, dendam, iri hati, kesombongan....
dan sederet kekurangan lainnya yang sungguh terlalu panjang untuk dituliskan.

Masih banyak dosa yang harus saya bersihkan,
dari dosa-dosa kecil, - yang semua orang juga tahu - sampai dosa besar,
yang cukuplah (dan semoga) hanya Allah dan saya yang tahu.

Sudah saatnya saya mulai berbenah diri.

Karena sungguh, saya ingin mencapai titik
di mana perjalanan kembali kepada-Nya adalah hal indah yang dinanti-nanti.
Bukan sesuatu yang saya hadapi dengan kaki gemetar.

Semoga.

My Best Teacher

When I first expressed my intention to adopt Darrel, the nurses repeatedly warned me, "He is a premature baby with complication at birth resulting in loss of oxygen supply to the brain. You are facing risks of severe brain damage, mental retardation, delay in speaking, walking or other developmental delays. None of those can be predicted at this stage. Are you sure you don't want another baby?"

To which I repeatedly and stubbornly answered "It won't matter, I'll love him anyway."

Today Darrel was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. He's been tiptoe walking for a while and I've read that the most common causes are autism or cerebral palsy (CP). Through my reading, I've noticed that CP's symptoms alarmingly resemble Darrel's condition. But I tried to calm myself and kept hoping it isn't true. But hearing a specialist declaring the diagnosis is like realizing your worst nightmare has come true, except it's ten times worse.

"OK, will he ever be able to walk?", I asked.
"Most likely yes, but not as a normal child would."
"On a scale of 1-100, how close will he be compared to a normal child?" - silly control freak me tried to seek solace in numbers, in statistics.
"85 - 95, depending on the severity and the location of the brain damage, ma'am."

Let me tell you, there is nothing as painful as hearing your child being declared damaged in any way whatsoever. No matter how kindly it is said.

That's when I lost it and bombarded the poor man with questions about possible treatments: Will he need braces, or casts, or physiotherapy, will surgery be necessary - if so, how would you weigh the risk of anesthesia compared to the benefit - what age do you think is most ideal to perform the surgery, will he need muscle relaxant treatment - I've read that not all of them are FDA approved... and so on. Basically, I blurted out every reading materials I've went through for weeks, while I'm sure those had been his reading materials for decades.

When the doctor finally able to stop my avalanche of questions, he reminded me not to get ahead of myself and imagine the worst. That further tests are necessary to determine the degree of severity and then and only then suitable treatments can be decided. So he sent me home with a recommendation letter to perform more tests.

Keeping my promise to love Darrel anyway is not hard at all. What's hard is imagining the number of tests and procedures he'd have to go through, the peer pressure when he's old enough to understand it, the possibility that he'd be dependent on walking aids, worrying who would take care of him when Hardi and I are no longer alive. Prognosis like "premature aging, deteriorated life quality around the age of 40 etc" haunted me during the long drive home.In my mind, I tried to control things that will happen 10, 20, even 40 years from now.

And then Darrel woke me up from my thoughts, "Mama... sun... sing!"
He saw the sun in the sky and asked me to sing one of his favorite songs, Mr. Sun. So I did and he sang with me, clapping his hands merrily throughout the song. Although 10 minutes ago he was still screaming on top of his lungs when the doctor examined him.

He reminded me about the seemingly endless capacity children have to be happy. About the fact that he is a survivor - he's been through two surgeries before he reached the age of 4 months. He's had IVs stuck to his head for months. He's survived another severe lung infection when he was 6 months old, even though at that point the doctor told me: at this stage, ma'am, all we can do is pray. He beats the odds, every single time. And here he is, happy as can be, as if nothing bad ever happened to him. And isn't that what matters, eventually?

And I remember this picture taken on his birthday not a week ago:


His happiness is what matters, that much I know now.
And whatever the result of our efforts may be, I'll make damn sure I'll give him enough reasons to have that smile on his face. With his cheerful nature and the endless natural joy he seems to carry and spread to everyone around him, I'll say we have a pretty good chance.

You know that old adage, the one that goes: Our children are our best teachers?
I, for once in my life, shut my mouth and don't argue.