A shocking news just arrived as I just got ready to work this morning and received a call from my boss. Wewe has just passed away. I was stunned for seconds. I didn’t actually hear what my boss was saying then. Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rojiun (Verily we belong to Allah and surely we will return to Allah).
He was just a simple man, with a big heart. He had been working with my Mum since he was small boy of 10 or 11. My Mum wasn’t even married yet then. He came along when my Mum got married, had five children (me being the youngest of them all) and still was until he passed away. His actuall name was Usup Sudjana. We called him Wewe because my oldest brother couldn’t say his name properly when he was tot, so he called him Wewe instead. Since then he became Wewe. Our Wewe. He had been a family to us. He took care of our house and us the children. Up to a point he never really interested in his own life. Until he found his wife in our house. Then not-yet his wife came to work for us as a maid and he finally got interested in marrying her. I came to his very simple wedding, and he just an irreplaceable part of my brothers’ and sister’s and of course my weddings.
I can vividly remember my times with him during my childhood and teens. When I was about preschool age, he was the one who accompanied me when my parents were working, and my brothers and sisters were at school. He took care of me, changing my bedsheet if it’s wet. Washed me when I’m dirty or even after I emptied my bowel, and all. He played with me, whatever games I wanted to play. Be it crafty games, activity games (which of course made my house which had just been tidied by him becomes a mess again), even cooking games. I remember how I wanted to make a Nasi Goreng dish. I didn’t know exactly how to do it. So I just pour soy sauce, and loads of it, to a plate of rice. I tasted it again and again, still didn’t taste like one, so I just pour more and more soy sauce in it. Until it was just yukky. When he found out he just laughed, take the plate away, put other ingredients in, fried it properly, and gave it back to me. Hmmm it was nice. Another morning saved. He showed me how to feed birds pet. He calmed me down when I was distress or cried. When I was at nursery, he was the one who picked me up everyday. He took my on a bike with a special wooden seat designed and made for me (back then there’s no fancy manufactured child seat like now). If the bike had a flat tyre or something wrong with it, then he picked me up by taking a beca (a javanese rickshaw). He kept picking me up until I was in primary school. By then, I started to be self-concious. I went to a private school where my friends were picked up by a chauffeured car. I told him to wait away from the school gate so that I didn’t get bullied or laughed at. Eventually, I was allowed to take a beca on my own so he stopped picking me up.
He didn’t finish his school. My mum insisted on him going to school. But he never interested in schooling. To a classic intelligence definition, he wasn’t that bright. He didn’t manage to finish lower secondary school. Nevertheless, he could be creative from time to time. He mended things for me (and for the whole family for that matter). He can find a substitute material to mend things and the result is superb. Surely, my Dad should show him one or two things first to him, but well, he eventually did them. When I was a teenager, my Mum gave me a radio cassette player. After a while, it started to do weird things. I still needed a player, a proper player, and yet I didn’t have money to buy a new one, and my parents wouldn’t give me any. So, after I saved up a bit, I sent him to exchange my radio cassette player in a flea market. Of course, I wouldn’t dare to go by myself. A few hours later, voila! I got a new radio cassette player that works better.
He was a patient man. My Dad often told him off because he was a bit slow in understanding things, but he just got by it. Until someday when he later got married, it was his wife that couldn’t take it. She wanted him to work in a factory or something more sophisticated than a domestic helper. She wasn’t sure whether living under the same roof as us will do good to their own family. So he and his family went off. My Mum wept for days. She thought she would never see him again. She considered him as her oldest son. However, as most of us expected, he couldn’t manage to do other jobs. So months later he came back and worked for us again. But unlike before, he now had his own home (of course we contributed to pay for this), and he came to our house during the day. A different settings, but everybody was happy.
The last time I saw him was when I last visited Bandung in November 2006. He looked ill. My parents said that he got some illness, but nobody knows what was it exactly. I felt sorry but I didn’t know what to do. He had been taken to doctors and had taken medications, but he seemed to be in pain still. He was as patient as ever. Whether this illness that’s the main reason why he’s gone, I don’t know. One thing I know is that I really miss him so much. These words only a tiny drop of what Wewe is to me. I know him all my life, longer than I know my own husband, my own children. He is like a third parent to me. So how much could you describe your parent and your moments with them?
Wewe, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there in your last moments, but I will always love you.
Sheffield, 17 January 2007
