Ayah, someone told me “I will make sure that you will be ok” when I tell him that the meeting makes me want to throw up.
Everyone wants a piece of me when I go home, they trust me with their stories and how their minds evolve. We cried about our failures and our longings. I cried with my friends about wanting a simple, happy life with a loving partner who takes care of me like you would.
Look at me being surrounded by the people who love me, Ayah.
In the ebb and flow of my life, I find you in a lot of things. In old cars at Jalan Antasari, in an old restaurant that serves mangut pari asap, and in art exhibitions. Each time I’d think: look at all the failures that I’m facing like a real adult. Look at one good thing that finally happens. Look at me forced to handle hard things alone but that’s okay because I know you would be proud of me. Look at me doing ‘the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do’ for the 4th time in a couple of years. Look at me finally realizing that all I have is the people who love me — anger, stupidity, loneliness, and all.
Look at the people who enabled me to cry, to be weak, to cry for help, ayah.
They would listen to even my most corrupted thoughts and say it’s okay to be this way. They believe in my ability to change for the better, if not now then they’ll stick around to see it later. I unlearned your way of seeing things, embedded in me like your DNA in every cell of my body. You usually would say “That’s how everything’s supposed to be, anything less is unforgivable.” But I am not you, and I’ve allowed myself to crawl. I don’t always have to run sturdy. I’m not your dream car.
I found strangers who became friends because they understand what it’s like losing you. If my ex knows, he would be pissed but I don’t care — we share the same grief that only people like us would understand. I found old friends who reached out to me for that reason, I found out that not only does grief protect people, but it also brings people together like nothing else did.
I feel like I was born anew, and I grieve every second that you missed seeing me growing into a more interesting person if we were to talk over the soto that mom made or the late-night food deliveries when Aji comes home once a year. I grieve how you didn’t get the chance to feel what it’s like to be the parents their children come home to on Eid. I grieve how you wouldn’t be there shaking the hand of the man who would marry me. I grieve your brief existence, and to the great beyond I send prayers that everything is finally okay for you.
