BADAI’S STRUGGLES
Thoudy Badai Rifanbillah (Republika, Jakarta)
“God, my son is born, may I get better soon,” said Dad when he was lying on the hospital bed. That was a moment that would become an eternal memory that Mom shared, when she put me next to Dad, 10 days after I was born.
A child’s growth is affected by the parents’ presence. But not every child is born with both parents. Divorce or death often puts a child in a condition of growing up with just a mother or father.
That’s my story. For 24 years, a single mother raises me. Dad has left my family and I, exactly a month after I was born. Dad passed away at 29 from colon cancer. At the time, Mom was 26 and already had four children. His passing was tough on her. She had to take on double roles. Besides educating the children, she also had to replace Dad as the breadwinner.
Time went by. For over a decade, Mom lived and made us a living with her own sweat and tears. At one point, Mom decided to remarry and bring a new member among our family.
Actually, it is still hard for me to picture my father’s figure. It’s so hard to translate into actions the feeling of being carried on Dad’s shoulders when strolling at the park , getting help to get up after falling from a bicycle, being taken to the school gate, getting advice after fighting, complaining when tired, or simply sitting by the dining table enjoying breakfast. Those imaginations are a blur. There are no memories in my mind about Dad. I can only recognize his face, by stroking his face from the family photo album and his short story on marriage. The story apparently looks like a partial sentence at the end of a romantic poem.
I remember the saying from a renowned psychologist, Seto Mulyadi or Kak Seto, about the need for parental figures for a child. According to him, the presence of a fatherly figure in a family affects the child’s psychosexual health. The masculine figure of a father tends to educate children from the cognitive point of view, it is about acting like a social creature, responsibility firmness, and thinking logic. I fully realize that those aspects do not dominate me.
I’m trying to assemble the memories about him, but I still have nothing. His absence is too real. But his blood spreads through my veins that I feel close, very close. As if we kept talking through every heartbeat. Whatever happens, I still try to give thanks. It gives me the strength to wave the future, until we meet again one day.