Grandpa

I rarely met my paternal grandparents. It was because they live in Ambon and it's quite far from Java. Yea, I'm not 100% Javanese. My father is an Ambonese, my mom is Javanese. I was born and raised in Java with Javanese customs and sooo little Ambonese customs. So, if you are one of my friends who wonder why my family speaks Indonesian and doesn't speak Javanese at home, now you know.

My paternal grandma visited us more often than grandpa did. I met my grandpa fewer than 10 times in my life, and it was always him who came to Java. I went to his residence once.

Grandpa with his 2 y.o granddaughter (me) feeding the chicken

But there are a lot of things I remember about my grandpa, tho. He was tall, he was quite skinny for me, his skin was dark, he has loud voice and always speak with thick Ambonese accent. When he smiled, you could see his white teeth shimmering. He always wrapped a white cloth around his head, I didn't know why did he do that, I never asked. When he came to Java and we didn't have that kind of cloth here, he always wrapped small white towel around his head instead.

My grandpa hated cold air. When he came here few years ago, we took him to Batu, another small city near Malang and a cold city, he couldn't do anything but sit in our car and didn't want to go out. Maybe because he spent most of his life living near beach where the air is warm.

He loved Bollywood films! When I was a kid, I used to sit near him and we watched Indian films for hours together. After that we had lunch and went straight back to the living room and watched another Bollywood film.

Grandpa was a... registered nurse? He wasn't a doctor but his job was similiar to a doctor, we called him 'mantri kesehatan' here ._. I remembered, once when we where staying at my uncle's house and my grandparents were there too, I was ill. My grandpa gave me a painkilling injection. After that, I refused to meet him for few days because I was scared.

I couldn't remember any other memories, but my parents told me some stories. Like, how he held me in his arm when I was a baby, or that one day when my grandpa and I (as a little kid) went to a drugstore, we were walking together hand in hand, we went through my father's office and he saw us from the window. Or the last time he was at our place, he told my mom not to leave him alone at home all the time no matter how busy she was.

Today, my grandfather passed away. I realized I couldn't make any more memories with my grandfather. It's sad, very unfortunate, but seeing him being ill and weak made me and my whole family even more sad.

Dear, Tete, you said you want to see all your grandchildren at your house, but yea, God knows you better see Him first.. Sleep well, Tete, we will see you soon..