Visiting the grave

Everything has been neatly prepared. My intention is firm. This year, I want to visit the graves earlier, before the nyadran ritual takes place, so that the timing is more flexible.

At least four to five times a year, I visit my mother, who rests eternally in her quiet grave. However, visiting the grave before Ramadan, also known as a cemetery pilgrimage, is very important to me because it always serves as a reminder of the limits of physical life, of the inevitability that is natural.

My mother's grave is located on the neck of a hill, which requires excellent physical condition to reach due to the uphill path with a slope of up to 45 degrees.

I had already imagined breathing clean air from a high altitude. Usually, I would stop for a while, stand upright facing the sky, close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then exhale slowly, while releasing the remnants of sadness and worry.

After that, I knelt at my mother's grave, cleaned the parts still covered with soil, poured rose water from top to bottom, then scattered red roses, white roses, jasmine, kantil flowers, ylang-ylang, and pandan leaves, swept the head of the grave with an embrace, and then recited prayers.

Just imagining it, my heart already feels very comfortable, even though my feet feel frozen from the cold. Socks don't seem to work. The jacket I'm wearing is unable to ward off the cold air that surrounds me from the air conditioning in the executive train carriage with a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. Freezing. I really can't stand cold air. Moreover, the air outside feels very cold. The rainy season reaches its peak in several areas in February.

My body shook as the train stopped at the destination station: Tugu, Yogyakarta. I immediately looked for a car that I had ordered from a kind neighbor to immediately take me to my mother's inherited house. Oooh I had to stop for a while at a supermarket on the same road to buy kyuri, my breakfast friend.

Everything felt fine, before suddenly I felt a dark energy attack, giving a strong negative pressure to my solar plexus. My breath was short. I felt like I was going to collapse.

When I arrived home, Yu Tinah helped me walk so that I wouldn't fall. She had been taking care of the house for more than 14 years while I had been living in Jakarta most of the time. She guided me to sit down and gave me warm, weak tea with a little sugar, massaged my nape gently, helped me to the bathroom and smeared my body with eucalyptus oil, then covered me.

I refused dinner. I just wanted to lie down.

"Nice saré, Sis," he said, quietly.

***

I woke up at 2:15. Usually I go straight to the bathroom, wash my face, clean myself, change my clothes, then I sit down, be quiet, do my morning ritual and say thanks. But this morning I couldn't sit up. So I lay back down.

My body is not strong. In this condition I will not be able to climb to reach Mother's grave which is located 70 kilometers from this city. This kind of illness needs at least three to four days to recover. I don't need medicine, I just need rest. On the fifth day I have to return to Jakarta because my leave is over.

That night I slept soundly for four hours. My time in the third of the night was only filled with emptiness, making the feelings inside me turbulent.

’Why am I not allowed to visit the grave? Why does Mother seem to reject my arrival? Is there something wrong with me?’

But my brain suddenly intervened in everything that was bothering my struggle and offered a very rational answer.

’You are not very well, your body is still not strong but you insist on going. Besides, you can’t stand the cold air conditioning.’

I had just recovered from a bad flu, plus the tremendous energy attack from the phenomenon of the five planets aligned closest to Earth, towards the end of January. For some time, my body felt very weak. An astrologer friend always reminded me to be extra careful of every astronomical phenomenon. He said my body is an absorber, easily absorbing any energy caused by the event, including the full moon.

But my heart reminded me, even with my legs still not fully healed after a serious injury from a fall, I could climb up to the grave easily. In fact, after that my legs were healthy, as if they had never been injured. That happened when I wanted to ask for Mother's blessing to make a pilgrimage by walking for 10 days in another part of the world, a few years ago.

Something inside me pushed me to find out more about what was really happening. Why was the temperature in the executive train carriage so cold? Why didn't the officers respond to my complaint? Wasn't it usually very comfortable with a temperature ranging between 27-30 degrees Celsius? Was my body so weak that the dark energy managed to paralyze me?

I believe, nothing is a coincidence.

Yu Tinah checked my temperature every three hours. She massaged my icy feet slowly, rubbing eucalyptus oil on them until they became warm again. When they started to get cold again, she came back into the room, massaging my feet gently again until they warmed up again.

That’s what he does every three hours and that’s what he always does when I’m sick. When my eyes are closed he whispers, “Sis, we’re living off of you. Get well soon, okay…”

The corners of my eyes warmed.

That night it seemed that Yu Tinah also couldn't sleep well.

Yu Tinah is very affectionate. I can feel her sincerity through her cooking, her touch, and all her care. I treat her as a part of my life, even though she always knows where and how to place herself.

"I entrust Tinah to her child, Mbak. Please let her live until Mbak no longer needs her," was the message from her mother, seven years ago, when Yu Tinah's husband left her and their only child. The man was in debt because of online gambling and had destroyed everything the couple had saved.

***

Two days later, I don't know what prompted me to take Yu Tinah and her 9-year-old son, Kiran, out to eat. I had only wanted to buy a light blanket at the mall to have on the train back to Jakarta.

The kid loves ice cream. Sometimes I buy him ice cream from the supermarket as a souvenir. So, when I passed the gelato ice cream stall on the ground floor, I stopped.

“Want to?” He nodded quickly.

That afternoon, he chose Oreo gelato, then enjoyed it until his eyes closed.

"It's delicious, Auntie. Thank you," he said, stuttering.

I don't know why my chest feels gritty seeing the child licking his ice cream wholeheartedly.

I also stopped at a restaurant to buy fried noodles.

“It’s expensive, Auntie, don’t buy it here,” whispered Kiran, to which I replied with a smile.

Kiran loves fried noodles, I packed it for her tonight. She nodded with blinking eyes. This afternoon we want to eat lesehan with ingkung chicken, a traditional dish from that city.

That lunch felt different. I saw Yu Tinah and Kiran eating heartily. Yu Tinah said ‘thank you’ many times. Her face was beaming.

The food was indeed very delicious. The seasoning was just right. My plate was empty. Maybe I was hungry because it was almost past lunch time, but I tasted a different delicious taste in a mound of rice, a piece of chicken and arèh, accompanied by chili sauce; delicious not to the sense of taste, but a pleasure that united all my senses to the point that it was difficult to describe.

I don't know what I feel, but my eyes are wet....

I had experienced such a mood a few years ago, when I enjoyed my lunch with just Yu Tinah's stir-fried tempeh with green chilies, while watching the rain fall from the glass window on a quiet afternoon. I felt an extraordinary pleasure and a sudden sense of gratitude.

Such a simple event filled my heart with happiness. I felt love wrapping my whole being, until I couldn't hold back my tears from falling.

***

The pleasure lasted until the evening, as did my mood, as if neutralizing my tangled thoughts because I didn't visit the grave. Also a series of 'whys' that I haven't found the answer to.

Suddenly I heard a soft voice.

"Have you ever invited Yu Tinah and her children to eat out together?"

I was shocked. My heart answered, “I always buy the food I eat outside for Yu Tinah and her child.”

"Have you ever asked Yu Tinah and her children to eat out with you?"

“I gave Yu Tinah extra money for snacks,” I answered again.

"Have you ever asked Yu Tinah and her children to eat out with you?"

Ah, the same question for the third time.

I answered softly, “No.”

No more questions. I caught a glimpse of my mother's smile from the corner of my eye.

My head suddenly became bright.

I read the message in the sasmita. It seemed like Mother wanted me to give myself to Yu Tinah and her child, to treat her with sincerity and strengthen the feeling of being considered. I had treated her very well, but it was still far from enough. I just hugged her with both of my hands, while my heart was still frozen inside.

A layer of onion skin that covered the veil of the heart has been peeled off. The high walls that have been solidly fortifying the deepest layer of my self-space were torn down by the glow of the mother and child's eyes that radiate gratitude.

I have visited the grave. Not to my mother's grave, but to myself, to my parched soul....***

Yogyakarta-Jakarta, February 2025.

Note:

1. Nyadran: a tradition in Javanese society to pray for ancestral spirits, as well as remind people of the end of human life, is carried out through a series of ceremonies that have been passed down from generation to generation in the month of Ruwah in the Javanese calendar or the month of Sya'ban in the Hijri calendar, to welcome the holy month of Ramadan.

2. Areh: thick coconut milk, cooked with spices, poured over gudeg, liwet rice or ingkung. Areh is a complement to traditional Yogyakarta cuisine.

Ahimsa Marga is Maria Hartiningsih, a senior journalist who in her time was known to be persistent in fighting for human rights, especially for children, women, and marginalized groups. In 2003, she received the Yap Thiam Hien award, an award in the field of human rights education that was the first to be received by a journalist in Indonesia.

Saskia Gita Sakanti, a bachelor of Fine Arts graduate from Bandung Institute of Technology in 2022. As an illustrator, she has won the 2021 AMI Awards for the album cover category. Interested in everything related to visual arts.