I thought I would be fine after two weeks.
I genuinely believed that. That I would grieve, process it, and then go back to normal, or even come back stronger. But I was wrong. Grief does not follow a schedule. It appears at random, in quiet moments, in the middle of ordinary days. It reminds me of something strange: when I used to play The Sims, and a character would occasionally stop what they were doing just to cry after losing someone. I used to think that was exaggerated.
Now I understand. That is exactly what it feels like.
This was not my first experience with grief.
I was twelve when my grandma passed away, and I remember grieving deeply. Back then, grief was loud. I cried openly. I screamed. It was overwhelming, but it was also clear.
This time, it feels different.
The sadness is still there, just as heavy, but quieter. I do not cry the same way. I cannot release it the way I used to. It lingers instead. Very subtle, but persistent, and difficult to process. I find myself sitting with it, not fully understanding how to deal with it, or what I am supposed to do with it.
I thought I understood grief. But I realise now that I do not.
When I saw my mum trying to hold back her tears, something in me broke as well. I always thought I was a strong person. But in that moment, I realised strength has very little to do with grief.
***
My grandpa was not a loud man. He did not demand attention, and he did not complain. He was quiet and steady, but in a way that never felt empty. And sometimes, unexpectedly, he was funny.
He valued his independence deeply. Even at the age of 90, he was still able to walk on his own, still moving through life at his own pace. He rarely asked for anything. But he gave in ways that were easy to overlook at the time.
He remembered things. Birthdays. Baptism dates. Moments that most people would forget.
And he loved all of us, his grandchildren, in a way that did not need to be announced. He just did.
***
For a long time, I took that for granted.
I knew he would always be there. That was the assumption. So I delayed things. I told myself that calling him would take too long, that it would be difficult to communicate, that I would do it later. There was always a later.
Until there wasn’t.
I even found a note I wrote back in 2020, where I admitted to myself that I had been taking my relationship with him—and with my family—for granted. I was aware of it. And still, I did not change enough.
That is a difficult thing to sit with now.
***
One of the things I cannot stop thinking about is his letters.
He never bought himself a proper notebook. But he wrote constantly. Whether it was something important or not, on scrap paper, in leftover notebooks, or even on the back of my doodling paper. After he passed, we discovered how much he had written: letters, notes, fragments of thoughts.
And yet, he bought things for me—shoes, a sketchbook, and other things I probably accepted without thinking twice.
I never saw him buying things for himself, not even a notebook. But he always gave things to me.
***
I still have his letters.
One of them was when he tried to calculate my age using algebra (or even with “ilmu balistik tingkat tinggi”—“advanced ballistic science,” as he wrote it in the letter). I was just fifteen years old; I had never heard of those words and did not think much about what they meant at the time. He broke it down into years, hours, minutes, and seconds, as if turning time into something measurable could somehow hold onto it a little longer.
Another one simply said,
“Kennice yts, Selamat ulang tahun. Tuhan selalu memberkatimu. Engkong tidak memberi apa-apa.”
“Kennice (my dearest), happy birthday. God always bless you. Grandpa didn’t give anything.”
But he did. He always did.
Even in the year my grandma passed away, when he wrote me a birthday letter, he caught himself mid-sentence—forgetting, for a moment, that she was gone. Reading that now, I can feel his confusion, his grief, his attempt to continue as normal. After all, it was only a few months after her passing.
I did not fully understand those letters when I first received them.
I do now.
***
Some of my clearest memories with him are simple ones.
Morning walks. Not far, just around the house or to the church. Sometimes we would sit at a small corner of the street, in a little gazebo, and eat bread bought from a street vendor on a bicycle. I would ask questions and he would tell stories while we sat there. I do not remember most of those stories anymore.
But I remember how it felt to be there.
***
There was a time when I tried to teach him how to use a mobile phone.
It was an old Nokia. I even made a small guidebook for him. Step-by-step instructions on how to send a text message. And he did. Once or twice, I received a message from him.
Then time moved on.
The Nokia was replaced with an Android phone. He was getting older, and it became more difficult for him to adapt to technology. I moved overseas. Life accelerated—university, graduation, work, engagement, marriage. And somewhere along the way, without noticing exactly when, we stopped talking as much.
Years passed faster than I expected.
***
The last time I saw him was on 4 January 2026.
He came to my wedding thanksgiving event in Surakarta. After that, we spent the rest of the day at Rasamadu Heritage. I remember feeling slightly emotional that day, though I could not fully explain why. There was a quiet thought in the back of my mind: what if this is the last time?
It turned out to be true.
Even just ten days before he passed, he was still travelling, still spending time with family, still present in the world.
***
After he was gone, we found things he had kept.
An album I made for him from our trip to Singapore that of course, he carefully stored it in his wardrobe. A birthday card from all of his grandchildren when he turned 90. Even in his final days, when he was already weak, he was worried about that card when it went missing.
He found it before he passed. And I am glad he did.
***
I think what my cousin wrote reflects what we all feel:
You were the grandparent I was closest with, even though we didn’t see each other often enough...
...thank you for raising my mom to who she is, and all her siblings, they are all wonderful human beings, and you are responsible for that.
That captures something I struggle to put into words: even if we did not see him often, even if distance and language made things harder, his love never felt reduced.
He raised a family of good people. That alone says more about him than anything else I could write.
***
I know he lived a long life.
I know he would not want me, or anyone, to be sad.
But knowing that does not make the sadness disappear.
***
Thank you for everything, Engkong.
For the quiet mornings.
For the letters.
For remembering us, even in the smallest ways.
For being there, even when I was not.
I hope you knew, at least in some way, how much you meant to all of us.
And I hope, wherever you are now, you are at peace.
*.*.*.*.*
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