dheaamitaedi - Tumblr blog

dheaamitaedi · 5 years

Text

That of A Miracle

THE UNIVERSE HAS BETRAYED ME long before I knew the words to my favourite song, what my dreams were, knew the location of all the countries in the globe, and long before I had my period and declared to have entered womanhood. The universe has been unfair to me; throwing me obstacles I wouldn’t have had the chance to overcome at such a young age if not for my bottling-up nature, and being able to conceal my true feelings to anyone around me. My mother taught me on how to hide my feelings from the world.

Whenever I would cry, she would flick my ear for me to stop, and I would obey.

Even as I entered adolescence and into adulthood I still cried in silence. I can’t bear to let my mother hear my cry, not because it would pain her, but it would pain me, because she was unable to show her motherly instincts. She doesn’t hug me or comfort me like those mothers on TV whenever they’re child showed pain. I don’t want to further ache myself knowing that my own mother was incapable of those emotions.

I wept alone.

Crying in my room, hiding from the world.

❈ ❈ ❈

I WAS BORN 14 YEARS after my parents were pronounced husband and wife. I was considered a baby miracle. No one saw me coming. They tried their hardest to conceive a baby until it felt as though it was all in vain; herbal essences, medicines, exercise. Nothing worked in their presence.

So they’re only option was to wait.

To wait for God’s testament.

My father wanted a girl, because he said that boys were difficult to nurse when they are young. They were reckless, naughty, and they liked to run around everywhere, and god-forbid if he wrecks the entire house if he decides to play basketball indoors and knock all the furniture.

So he prayed for a girl.

SUMMER OF 1997, when my father was in Oslo, Norway, he met an endearing woman named Ms Lien. He had the pleasure to encounter her at an ASEAN community gathering, which was attended by Vietnamese refugees. Ms Lien was among those many refugees who fled from the Vietnam war in 1975 after the Fall of Saigon. She fled to Indonesia by boat to the island of Batam, and she was luckily screened out and transferred to Norway. During that time Indonesia was not a member of the UNHCR, still not a member even until this very day. That prevented them from freely accepting refugees.

Ms Lien was the person who lifted up my father and mother’s spirits from the ashes. She predicted a baby would come out of my mother’s womb.

She was careful with her words.

“Mr Hendrar, your wife will give birth. Next year. She will come to this world safe and sound.”

“She?” My father exclaimed with delight.

“Yes, a baby girl.” Ms Lien answered whilst smiling.

Bursts of joy and electrifying sensations protruded from my father’s widening smile. His prayers and my mother’s has finally been answered.

God really does wonders.

MY FATHER WAS A FIRST-SECRETARIAT AT THE EMBASSY of Indonesia to Norway. He was stationed in Norway in February 1994. A very well-distinguished diplomat to its fellow colleagues. He was a hard worker, a true nationalist, a benevolent diplomat.

Being a diplomat; a representative of your country in a foreign land, is a very noble and renowned occupation. A great deal of diplomacy, communication skills, vast knowledge of world politics is needed. You don’t only need to have pride in your own nation but also respect other country’s culture, and norms and values.

But coming home from work he would be a different person. Angrier, much more impatient and crankier. As if the day's work was just a facade of his true feelings. Home was the only place where he could express his annoyance and exhaustion freely. And my mother was both a witness and victim of this other persona of his. Some days she would just yell out of sheer exasperation at my father's temperament.

She would then complain to the walls of the house as that was her only consolation.

Though now, every day after he got home from the embassy, he would have this joyous smile despite the hours he spent reviewing reports and sitting in front of the monitor, it would all be worth it at the end because this time next year a baby girl would be born. My baby girl. He thought. And he would finally be able to cradle me in his own loving arms. He would whisper the adzanin her ear. Whisper her the glorious name of Allah. Thank Him for this precious miracle He has given him. All the waiting and nervous glances whenever my mother came out of the bathroom with the pregnancy test without the two red-triped lines. Sighing heavily and just losing hope. That will all disappear because finally he will have a child. 14 years of waiting.

❈ ❈ ❈

NO ONE KNEW what was going to unravel the following year in May, when spring ended yet the cold still seeped silently through the worn thick blankets and bedsheets of my parents’ bedroom. The New Order era was finally over and the dictator who led Indonesia for 32 years ceased to rule the country. The revolution to topple down Soeharto’s rule began in early 1998. There were communal violence encircling the entire archipelago of Indonesia; Jakarta, Ambon, Medan. Kerusuhan Mei 1998, the May 1998 riots, was a tragedy wherein there were mass demonstrations, civil unrest and these were all triggered by mass unemployment.

During that same year, in February, my parents were transferred back to Jakarta due to the dryness of the state’s budget. The state’s currency declined drastically: from 1 Dollar equivalent to 2,500 Rupiah, it dropped to 16,000 Rupiah. The country did not have money. Null.

When my parents returned, they had nowhere to stay. They were homeless.

So, my grandfather offered to lend them his house in Depok, it was more than enough. My mother was carrying a 3-month old foetus. They needed somewhere to stay.

Big cities such as Bandung, Medan—including the capital city, Jakarta—was filled with political demonstrations.

It was not a full-blown riot yet, but the tension was already deeply felt.

And a baby’s kicking in my mother’s womb was also deeply felt in the month of April, a month before Soeharto was succeeded by President B.J. Habibie, 3 months before I came to the world.

❈ ❈ ❈

IN JANUARY 2002, my father was stationed in New Mexico City, his third diplomatic posting; my first. I was 3 years old when we packed our entire house into brown shipping boxes and moved all the way to the west hemisphere.

I was a minority in my school, the only Southeast Asian in my class, the only one whose native language was not Spanish. The only one who had trouble speaking any language at all for that matter. Yet I was considered the smartest. I was thriving in that school. I spoke fluent Spanish in a span of a year. I was able to surpass all of the Spanish native speakers in my class. I received praises from my teachers.

“Bravo Dhea! Tu es muy inteligente!”they exclaimed, heart-warmingly satisfied with me. Well done Dhea! You are very smart!

“Muchas gracias señorita!” I responded.

“I am so proud of you querida”

I was perhaps the happiest girl in the room.

I never received praises from my parents. I don’t remember them ever congratulating me for obtaining a perfect score on my Mexican History test nor when I received a sticker at the corner of the page of my story-telling paper.

It was only then, when my teacher approached me, that I was genuinely praised for something I did. And I was proud of being a minority.

The school I went to was a private school located nearby my apartment in Calle de Emerson. It only took approximately a 10-minute walk, and yet I was always marked tardy. My homeroom teacher would always scould me during morning assemblies.

“Dhea, come antes ocho.”Before eight. The daily language is Spanish and most of the students came from around Mexico or South America. My father enrolled me here due to the close proximity from the apartment.

What one of the things I liked about this school is that we got to go to the outskirts of town for Physical Education class since the school could not fit in every grade in the basketball court they owned. We were escorted by a huge bus. My grade consisted of nearly 35 students. It felt like a herd of cows being placed in a very cramped truck; so noisy with students chanting Spanish songs through the entire trip.

On the way back from the sports arena, my friends and I played a game of truth or dare. I chimed in even though I found the game just a tad stupid. A bunch of people absentmindedly admitting to doing whatever dare they were dared to do. I find it very odd. But it was fun to see the stupid things they would gladly do for fun and laughter.

I VOMITTED ON THE FLOOR OF THE BUS.

No one helped and instead I heard booming laughter.

My friend dared this girl named Carla to stick down her tongue down my throat and that was when I wanted to withdrew from the game because I didn’t want to.

She violently pinned my shoulders to my seat and swiftly and forcefully put her tongue all the way down my trachea and I could feel my feet flailing in the seat. It reminded me of that time my mum had to chase me down with a spoonful of antibiotics on her, and she finally caught up to me and forced it down my mouth. Except this was traumatising. I kept pushing her away from me until she finally removed herself from my mouth. It lasted for nearly 2 minutes.

Seeing this, Leonardo dared me something vicious and terrorizing.

He smirked.

I stayed silent the rest of the way back to school.

❈ ❈ ❈

THE THING ABOUT ME IS that I will not open up to anyone even if you’ve gave birth to me, raised me, fed me, piggy-backed me, and swung me in the air. I would still not spill my darkest secrets or my traumas until you dig it out of me, unscrewed the rusted box you’ve found buried deep inside me with a machete, and lifted the long-listed sheet of paper filled with my despair.

But my parents never pried.

Nor did my friends.

They never asked. And I simply stayed silent. That’s how I became a very reserved girl at a very young age. I learnt to bottle-up as a premature habit.

I still remember that day on the bus on our way back from the sports arena somewhere near Polanco, as clearly as the summer skies of Tunis. Two countries later, and the memory still persists. I don’t remember every detail of my childhood in Mexico but it’s funny how the moments you try to forget are sometimes the one that clings in your head. Funny how the things you want to strip off your memory are the ones that cling so desperately and you’re unable to dispatch of it. And the things you want to remember are the ones that gradually fade away with time. Memories work in wondrous ways.

It’s been 9 years and I can still feel it.

His skin was smooth like a baby’s scalp.

I can still hear the unclasping of his belt as he removed his uniform and revealed dangling skin. And as he pulled his trousers down to the floor of the bus, he violently grabbed the back of my head and pushed me down so I would come mouth to mouth with his penis. Yes. That’s the word.

And my eyes would open wide with bewilderment. Tears formed at the edge of my eyes.

Back and forth.

He would rock my head back and forth and a cunning, mischievous smile would form.

I SAW THE WAY MY DAD HELD ME in his arms from the album pictures; the way my blanket was draped around my little body, swaddled with love; the way my little fingers wrapped around my dad’s thumb just eloquently gripping with adoration; the way I buried my head in my dad’s chest smelling his fresh odour. Suddenly all of those things that I don’t remember came rushing in like a tsunami; unexpectedly and harshly. Inexistent memories to me yet existent to the very core to my dad.

Miracle baby.

A girl!

Mine.

Voices resonating my insides, trembling with uninhabited feelings, trying to wrangle me out of my subconscious. I remember the dishevelled hair when he wakes up, the way his footsteps reverberate through the walls of the house, how his bone structure shaped his broad shoulders, his tanned-to-dark skin that was always being shit-talked.

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Nine

White-round-tiny pills. The irony of overdosing on the medication that was prescribed to help you.

Thirty

And all is dark.

And the last thing I remember is my dad yelling my name wrangling me awake, only to find an empty prescription bottle and a a bottle of vodka on the floor.

0 notes