Day 5 : Your Parents

“It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.” ― Roald Dahl, Matilda

My parents both are a busy person, they wouldn’t be able to stay-still and keep buzzing around here and there. As if a fullstop is a unforgiven sins. But i love them so much, i just couldn’t show it nor express it.

I remembered one day in my fifth, i guess? I don’t quite remember. I’ve been introduced to game by my cousin. He introduce me to many consoles including MMORPG (e.g Ragnarok, GetAMPED), but my parents refuse me to buy just any, yes any kind of consoles. So they bought and let me use a computer, i guess it’s a Pentium 2 processor with windows 95 on the operating system. So i’ve been playing Pokemon on PC using emulator, and my mom restrict my playing time only after going home from school and sleep. At that time my mom was a full-time worker as an head apothecaries in Condet, East Jakarta. So i need to call my mother to grant a ‘computer access’. I’ve learnt to lie since that day, yup most of the time i couldn’t went to sleep and just skipped to pinching computer on power. I was feeling guilty but not that guilty(?)

Yup, i lived with many restriction and boundaries from my parents (especially my mom) since i was the one and only child. My father was like my shield in my childhood era. He was my hero and my favorite, if my mother start to scold me he was just shown up from anywhere and counter the attack. Damn, i just realized how nice was that year.

I remember, my father oftenly take me to his work with his Suzuki Katana. He was a doctor, internist to be started. Medical faculty, University of Indonesia and RSUPN Cipto Mangunkusumo was glued to my childhood memories even until now, even my father has taken me into his night shift once, and i just spend all night to play games on his Laptop (i remember it very well that Toshiba, Portege). So nostalgic i could die.

So here we are, welcome to our three family members club!

Father

Well i would describe my father as a firm but gentle kind of person. He was strict and fierce, but he also gentle (ok, he’s full of duality like me). He was a smart kid back then, entering medical school in top Indonesian university (you know what it is) with full scholarship. After finished he take a specialist program internist sub allergy-immunology. He said it was because i was born lethal and allergic so he could known my diseases better.

i used to be very close to my father, he spoiled me a lot. But to be started with, i wasn’t as spoiled as any other the only child. I refer spoiled me a lot as an affection. Every weekend we would visit Gramedia and or any other bookstore and electronic store. Either it’s just for a window shopping or a real shopping, LOL. We also spend time to playing chess and any other board game together. He likes to surprised me buying some toys on his way home from work. I remember one day in my high school years, he was in USA and asked me, “Son, what do you want me to brought you home?”. I tell him please brought an iPod or an iPhone. Damn, he gone home with the latest and the biggest storage version of an iPod. I was so happy, that i would cry that day. Yet i lost that iPod in a month with my laptop. And he still buy me an iMac afterwards and saying some warm words, “I always give the best for you, so please take care of what i give to you. Here i bought you an iMac so you couldn’t get to bring your computer anywhere so you wouldn’t lost it again ok!”. It was 2011 And i hug him and i cry a bit.

I don’t really know when it was become quite cold between me and him. I think it was as he more and more occupied with his work. I couldn’t deny he was a competent not just as a doctor but also a hospital management. His patient has gone bloat like crazy even before i realize it. He was this secretly keep his own problem and solved it like a magic(with a lot of stress i know it for sure). He was a director once, commisioner and now he focusing to gain the title of professor. But yes, it’s just become further and further. Until a point that we become awkward to start a deep conversation. And today we just talk bit-by-bit.

That is my awkward-super-dad, i love him so much. Sometimes i would cry just to remember anything about him (like currently, maybe? You guess). And i curse my high-dignity self for unable to blab three love words to him. But i know for sure, i love him so much that i would do anything just to see his smile.

Mother

My mother, would not really be your favourite kind of person. She was quite talkative and pusher, but deep down i know what my mother blabbing about is for my own sake. At first my mother was my number one enemy at home, i would do anything just to runaway from her. So i decided to take a college in Bandung. Both my parents has offer me some interesting-offer if i would take sharia economics faculty in University of Indonesia. Yet still, i refused i really want to runaway and break free that day so i wouldn’t hear my mother voice in dawn time waking me up. She is soft, kind and friendly type of person, but pusher and have a passive-agressive complication. I don’t quite remember much good memories with her in my childhood.

But turns out, by running away to quite far has changed me quite a lot. At first i was happy, day by day i started to miss my mothers buzzing voices that wake me up at the dawntime and any other time (because she’s buzzing almost everytime). She still being protective at me, and i get scolded for my smoking behaviour again at that time. Yes i was got a rebel personality, so i’ve been quite a naughty kid back then without my mom knowing.

But as time goes by, there was some life-changing moment. I was diagnosed with bipolar type II, it was happened after long stairway from hell to forget my ex with daily dose of booze. I’ve felt something off since quite a long time ago, but i just strengthened to checking myself out to a psychiatrist. There was time i really knew that my mother bizzy-buzzing shout and stuffs is a love language of her. I couldn’t change her, i just need to understand her as her child. Even if i could barely tell her anything. But stills her presences was priceless.

Parents and Parenting

As a closing, i oftenly ask to myself these questions, “Could you do better or as par as your father have done to you?” or “Becoming a parent supposedly hard”. My parents has gave me uncountable priceless things and memories. I couldn’t denying that parenting anxieties one of my concerns. As far i know, the only thing i would want to be achieve with my wife and children is spending as long as i could do as a father and husband. So i wouldn’t found my child to get caught in any lonely way of life. He or she got me, for the rest of my life.

“We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.”― Henry Ward Beecher