In Memoriam

My beloved Grandmother, Liana Widjanarko, passed away suddenly tonight.

I remember her as a gentle woman with kind soul and wacky sense of humor, quiet determination and persevereance.

My earliest memory of my grandmother was when I was around four. I woke up early one day, around 5 am. She was up already, and she smelled good just after taking a shower. She was always neat, and though most of her dresses were very simple, she had that kind of air of elegance that very few people had naturally.

My grandmother took me to the front porch of her house in Undaan Wetan. It was still quite dark. She would pray first, using red incense sticks, lit them up and moved them up and down, three or five times, while looking up to the skies and murmuring some prayers. She told me that She was praying to Dikong (God - She was neither buddhist nor christian back then, she only believed there is God). Then she would lit me some sticks or sometimes using her old incense sticks, and she'd hug me from behind, hold my hands and moved them to pray to Dikong.

I loved that rituals, because none of my family were up yet and it was just something between her and me. something special.

When my mom turns to devout Christian, we no longer pray like that. Actually, I never pray with my grandmother ever since.

My grandmother said that she could not write. But she knew how to read. I never figured out how one is possible without the other. Anyway, I remembered she would never use her glasses to read the newspaper. Instead, she would make a fist and peered through it to see the fine prints of the newspaper.

My grandmother was very good with money. Oh yes, she remembered everything concerning money, up until the last Chinese New Year. She remembered who gave her for how much. From me and my two other cousins who gave her the red envelopes, she said one gave the same amount, one gave more, and one gave less ( I wouldn't named names here). She was once laughing out loud when she discovered a red enveloped with only Rp.50,000 in it (or was it 20,000?) and when one of my cousin realized she was the one who gave the envelope and it was the wrong one, my grandmother demanded an exchange. Every chinese new year's eve, she would supervised my mother and my oldest cousin distributing money and envelopes for her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She would make sure that each stacks for each envelopes was counted twice.

My grandmother was a very good cook. Even after her stroke, she still commanded the cook in our house how to cook what. She'd taste the food, before deciding whether it's good or not. I had the privilege of her teaching me how to cook Sambal goreng Tumpang, one of my favourites. I also once helped her made ronde from scratch.

My grandmother had a lot of toothbrushes. And bars of soap. And plenty of underwears. And parfumes. She loves parfumes. Her drawer always smells of fresh flowers everytime I opened them. All of them never been used. She was a survivor of two world wars, a war of independence, and countless civil wars. She had once lived a life in which she had very few things and hungry and never had anything for herself. So she always had those things ready as a "just in case" supplies. We always joked around about it. Especially when she barely had teeth the past years of her life (but had around, 10 new, unopened toothbrushes)

My grandmother was the second daughter. Her mother, my greatgrandmother, had died when she was 104 years old in 1985, when I was four. Her older sister, who is her only sibling, died years earlier. My mother is her second daughter. And I am my mother's second daughter.

My grandmother had a stroke for the past 15 years.

My grandmother's oldest son had died five years ago without her ever knowing. My uncle promised my grandmother to visit her on a Saturday, he died just days before. My grandmother still thought he's alive till the day she died.

My grandmother is a very special woman. She was a widow most of her life. Her husband died when my mother, her seventh child, was fourteen. She earned money by rolling tobacco in our kampung. She was the mother of eight children, two girls and six boys. She had 25 grandchildren, and twenty seven great grandchildren (going twenty nine). Felicia is her twenty sixth great grandchild. She was once a refugee, walking and hiding in the forest most of the journey, from Caruban in Madiun to Surabaya, with her six children. All the while unsure what had happened to her husband, who had been taken away by people to kill. She told me there was once a time, when every chinese family ought to give out one man to be killed. My grandfather should have been that one man. He had been separated from the family, rounded up in a hut in the middle of the forest, waiting to be killed. They told me that dutch soldiers rescued him. I never knew how they met again. but they did. they moved out to Surabaya, and later on my grandmother gave birth to my mom.

My grandmother hated her mother. her birth mother. She told me that her mother ran away from the family when she was a child. Her father had remarried. I never knew whether my great grandmother who had died when she was 104 was actually her birth mother or her step mother. She seemed reluctant discussing it, and I always thought I'd have time to ask her later. always later.

My grandmother was once introduced to a young Dutch man when she was very young. She said "they" tried to match her with that man. I never knew who "they" were. I always teased my grandmother that, had she accepted his proposal, I would have had blue eyes and blonde hair. I forgot why she refused the offer.

My grandmother always had time for me. Always bought me snacks when I was a kid and mother wasn't around if I wanted to buy something. I never did the same in return. I was always too lazy to visit her, too tired, too busy. Though she lived with my parents. She visited me three times after Felicia's born. I only visited her once last week. Promising her that I'd made my parents to take her to my house again the week after. It was a promise I never really intend to keep, and now I'd regret it forever.

I love my grandmother, and I regret never told her so.

Liana Widjanarko was born March 3rd, 1916. She was 93 years old.

Me, My Mother, My Daughter, and My Grandmother.