The past..

What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now.” (unknown)

I'm perfectly aware that holding onto the past is like living without tomorrows. But at this moment, let me hold onto it just for a few breath, a few blink, a few heart beat…. I just want to freeze this moment. I will move on, I will… because I still want that “tomorrows”!

Mbok Suminah – a picture of simplicity

My trip to my mom’s hometown and my parents’ resting place, Solo, every year has always brought met to meet this lady. Her name is Mbok Suminah. She is the second generation of a family who looks after the grave yard that belongs to my big family (from my mom’s side). It is located in a small and serene village, Mandungan, 15-20 minutes from the city center. There lies my parents, my grandparents, aunties and some distant relatives that I hardly know for their live some years back.

If you are imagining someone in mid fifty in a traditional suit and always speak in local language, well...you get that right! She is in every thing you would imagine of a traditional Javanese lady. She hardly speaks Bahasa Indonesia but I guess communicating has gone through far from only language barrier.

Early this year, I went to Solo by myself, something that I’ve never done before. I always went there with the whole troops of the big family. But that time, I thought I wanted to be alone with my (late) dad. So I went there.

When I first got the entrance of the cemetery, my sight was caught on a lady who suddenly got up from her sleep under a tree. Yeap! She was sleeping in the mid of the very quite cemetery. Although it was not as spooky as any public cemetery would be, but the idea of taking a nap there, was never even on my wildest dream.

She warmly welcomed me, as usual, and escorted me to come inside. I tried to speak with her with my very broken Javanese language. Then there came her report of who have recently visited. When I “talked” to my dad, she just sat quietly few meters from me. That lasted for about an hour. She just sat there without any distracting moves, she simply accompanied me.

When I finished, she told me not to cry about my dad anymore, instead I should be happy that he’s now resting in peace. That I should always pray for him, for it was one of the important thing that can help my dad up there. If I were in any problem or being in an unease life phase, my dad would always be there. He wouldn’t leave me alone. That is the thing I should remember. I heard all those advice so many times from so many people who cared about me, but having them from someone like her, I felt differently. I didn’t know why. Perhaps it was her sincerity that has touched my heart in her own way or perhaps because I was in a very sentimental situation (being with my dad in my own time without all people around me).

My second visit fell two days after the first one. She was cleaning the cemetery when I got there. She smiled and greeted me, saying she had been waiting for me. I went directly to my dad and spent there for next one hour. She continued of cleaning. When I finished my “chat”, she came and sat next to me. She said that it was OK to cry but don’t let your tears fall on my dad’s grave. The conversation continued to her sharing of her life. She said that she just had unfortunate incidents that her son-in-law got accident with her motorcycle but things were now better. She also shared how she lost her mother and then 2 months later, her father.

My curiosity forced me to shoot her questions. How did she feel being attached to a cemetery? Wasn’t she afraid? Was her life affected?

She answered me with stories, a rather-spooky one. She told me that seeing some ‘unrest souls’ come to her house and wandering around or one afternoon when she saw one Japanese troops complete with all the weapons and uniforms worn during their invasion to Indonesia in 1940s, were nothing that came to a surprise anymore! Gee..! I would have been dumbstrucked and passed out immediately!!

Her dreams were to see her children live happily in their own way, to see her grandchildren grow every single day, to serve her commitment to her work (being the gatekeeper of a cemetery). The cleaning thing was her routine activity, then cooking afterward or playing with her grand kids, day after day. She was happy and fulfilled. She just wanted to live her life as what she has understood from her religion, so that by the end of the day, she wish to face God gracefully.

For few seconds, I envied what she has in her life – certainly not the looking ghost part! How life can be so calm, how days can go without having so much worries or strong pressure from the people, or high expectation that you would have to fulfill, how things are easily manageable without too much disruption, how she could see life as beautiful as God has granted her for and for it will stay like that forever

What is it like, living in simplicity?

I don’t think having no obsession in live would count; neither living in poverty will support you better to live simply; or probably the personal taste of frugality contributes something to a simple life. Is it living with simple job with less stress, having less friends and no social activities, reflect to less problems and thus create a simpler life?

What is simplicity? It is probably like happiness which teaches us of the joy seeing life as beautiful as it was meant to be, to overcome problems as natural part in life that would come and go, to relieve the ultimate possession over things. It is also probably like happiness. It is a game in our mind. And by all things happened to our life, it teaches to be grateful! Be grateful as in the gratitude, it lies a strength, that help you to see life as the greatest gift. Think simple and live simply.