Saya forward-kan cerita ringan yang muncul dalam "Kayupasak Newsletter". Buletin ini diterbitkan secara berkala dan dikirimkan kepada pemberi beasiswa yang tinggal di Jepang, Amerika, dan Eropa.
e ----------------------------------------------------- A Grandmother's Heart by edizal As a well-known seamstress in my region of villages, Uci (which is the name people call my grandmother) frequently visited one place or the other for teaching. She conveyed her knowledge about stitching and embroidering to pupils using a simple needle or a sewing machine. Since the cost of a sewing machine is very expensive for villagers, if I am not wrong, Uci was the only one who managed to buy one. So many people came to my house for having dusters and dresses sewn, besides requesting to learn how to sew clothes. People who came to ask for help usually did not offer her money. Instead, they gave her various kinds of goods, such as rice, vegetables or other farm products. This bartering offer more or less helped our household's economic situation that was on the wane after my grandfather passed away and my mother pursued her study in the city (which took 2 days to reach, namely one day of walking from our village to a small town, then taking a bus to the town of Bukittinggi, and changing the bus for another one to the city of Padang). My mother, who was spoiled as a child by her parents and lived happily during her early years of marriage, suddenly changed her character after my father divorced her. She exerted tremendous discipline over herself, removed the entry "spoiled" from her living dictionary and decided to pursue her study in the city for the sake of her two sons' future. Uci had to struggle by herself to work hard for a living in the village and for my mother living in Padang. When my mother moved, I was consequently raised under the umbrella of Uci's guidance. My parents' divorce separated me from my older brother who was taken away to live with my father in a faraway village. My father was the only child in his family, and his parents were the richest couple in their village. So, my brother and I Iived under extremely different conditions. When I was born, my father, who was enraptured by the love of another woman, did not bother at all to see my arrival into the world and did not care about my development, particularly since I Iived with Uci. Surely, Uci and my mother felt a tremendous burden due to his behavior. But, as far as I know, Uci never spoke a single bad word about my father. Besides, she tried to turn my attention away from this situation and poured her affection into her fatherless grandson. Uci's beautiful virtue tvhs to refrain from speaking ill of others. I realized the core of the virtue more after I grew up. If we want to talk bad about someone, the best thing to do is talk in front of the person, not behind their backs. This way, one can be responsible for what one said. On account of this, I tend to keep away from anyone who likes to talk bad about others because there is a big possibility that the person will talk bad about me behind my back, too. Since I was rarely far from her side, people called me "grandma's son". I did not play much with my little friends because I felt such happiness to be together with Uci. But, as the start of elementary school days drew near, time spent with Uci diminished, and time with my friends grew. Quarrelling while playing with my peers made a big impact on my mental and physical development. It was a kind of preparation to face challenges and uncertainties in the future. Quarrelling, and even sometimes fighting, with my friends created an uneasy atmosphere, but being with Uci always gave me a sense of security and comfortable feeling. Uci almost never left me alone at home. She always took me to many places, even though she had to hold my hand to walk on pebble roads or along paths in the jungle. Since we were always barefoot, our feet were relatively wider, and the bottom of our feet was thicker compared to city people who wore sandals or shoes every day. Obviously, wide and thick feet were the result of adaptation to our environment so that sharp pebbles along the road would not cut into the soles of them. Uci's customary practice was to whisper for a while before leaving our house to travel a long distance. The words she used for praying for our safety were unknown to me and seemed to be like Minangkabau language. Her strong belief in the effect of prayers made her fearless to enter the jungle where many wild animals dwelled, such as boars, elephants, tigers, bears, and others. As a very young boy, I was naturally drawn to being somewhat afraid in the jungle. Thick leaves on the big tall trees were a hindrance as the sunlight touched the path to make the jungle's environment rather cold and dark. But, the belief in Uci's prayer powerfully surrounded my body and removed unnecessary fear from my heart. Anyway, we never had any trouble from the wild animals as we crossed their kingdom. We found a lot of sweet, wild fruit trees along the paths of the valleys and lush green hills. Uci was very patient to wait while I picked up the fruit and helped me to pick one that I could not reach with my own hands. Sometimes she ate some fruit, too, but she always passed the biggest and most delicious ones to me. I enjoyed touching the fresh, cool water of the mountain river. My mind became tranquil to watch the clear water flow, and I feel the same way today, too. So, I Iike just watching clear water for hours. Also, gazing from a lookout point at the carpet of a green jungle accompanied by fields in the far distance while birds chirped lively was a kind of heaven that cannot be found even in our dreams. Attending first grade made my time with Uci become even less since I had to chew the school's table until 10:30 a.m. Meanwhile, Uci worked in the field alone. Except for someone who helped her by plowing the field with a buffalo, she did most of the work herself, such as clearing weeds and keeping birds away from the crops. So, she had to stay in the field from the time the shape of twinkling stars faded away until the sunset dyed the sky red. After my unpleasant class finished, I directly went to the field to have lunch together with Uci. I can say that breakfast, Iunch, and dinner consisted of just the same thing all the time, namely, rice, chilly sauce, boiled cassava leaves, and sometimes salty, dried fish. Since many villagers ate more simply than us, our meals never made us bored. We enjoyed them every day. After my mother finished her university studies and got a job as an elementary school teacher in Padang, I was transferred there. Uci remained living in the village and sometimes came to the city, or we visited her. A few years after that, Uci passed away in the village. and I felt her death was a big: blow to me. The existence of Uci in mv life is like my own mother, and her departufe continues to be a really big loss for me. At the end of 1990, my student's father, who is a priest in a temple on Kyushu Island in Japan and has supernatural powers, told me that he can see an elderly woman always watching over me wherever I go. Even though he could not explain in detail who she is, I assume that she is Uci, who always looked after her beloved grandson. I believe there is a spirit world which is a different dimension from our world that is domiciled by spirits, including Uci. I remember Uci's face full of solemnity when I knew her. She rarely laughed, but she softly smiled a lot. She spoke calmly, but clearly and sternly. It seems she really thought first about what to say and did not just blurt out whatever suddenly came to mind, and people respected her for rarely becoming angry. Uci departed to the other world and left her unaccountable affection that I cannot return. But, my memory of Uci never fades away with time. RantauNet http://www.rantaunet.com Isikan data keanggotaan anda di http://www.rantaunet.com/register.php3 =============================================== Mendaftar atau berhenti menerima RantauNet Mailing List di http://www.rantaunet.com/subscribe.php3 ATAU Kirimkan email Ke/To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isi email/Messages, ketik pada baris/kolom pertama: -mendaftar--> subscribe rantau-net [email_anda] -berhenti----> unsubscribe rantau-net [email_anda] Keterangan: [email_anda] = isikan alamat email anda tanpa tanda kurung ===============================================
