On Losing Someone

I’ve lost my dad, both of my grandpas and one of my grandmas before I turned 21. So I really thought that I am used to losing someone. I was wrong. I can never get used to the feeling of losing someone that you care about.

In about a yearly rate, my uncles started to leave us too. Some left suddenly and left me in shock, but I’d like to think that it happened for the best for some of them because they have been dealing with such pain and sickness before their departure.

I know I came from a close-knit family so I do have a lot of uncles and aunts that I care so deeply, but going to a funeral at least once a year? it’s saddening, really.

Then I lost my aunt a week ago. She’s my mum’s younger sister, 2 years apart. She lives in Manado so I didn’t see her often, but when she visited Jakarta, she always stayed in my house. And she used to had long visits to Jakarta, each lasted about a month or more. So we were close, we had a lot of memories.

She came to Jakarta in November to attend my wedding then stayed with my mum for awhile. She even took me to the airport when I was about to leave. Never did I imagine that it would be the last time I saw her.

In early January she came back to Manado, and just after a couple of days, she lost her consciousness, and never woke up. She was in ICU for about a week, but still her departure was so sudden that it breaks our hearts.

I was on my way home from dinner with R and our friends when I got the call. Just three words. At first I could not comprehend. I hung up, broke the news to R, and still managed to tell our friends what happened.

Then we reached home, talked to my brother on the phone… and went to bed. R left for work early the next morning so I woke up by myself.

It hit me.

By then it was already midnight in Indonesia so I couldn’t really talk to anyone. I felt it all, the confusion, sadness, disbelief. I decided to go out to a nearby cafe, filled my stomach with some sweets and read a nice book. It successfully took my mind off things. Then R came home, we had nice dinner, and talked our feelings through. He too, felt sad. He only met my aunt briefly after we got married but since we all stayed in my mum’s house before we left… he felt connected to her already.

My aunt was always smiling. She is funny,  loving, and she’s also one of the most faithful people that I’ve known in my life. I’ll miss her dearly but I believe she’s already at peace now.

Dealing with the loss of a loved one is always difficult, no matter how often it happened. Being so far away from family during this difficult time is heartbreaking, it seems like I need more time to accept things because I didn’t see it, I wasn’t there. But writing this has been relieving for me, I guess I just needed to let it out.

Thank you for reading, God bless us all x