n celebration of the “International Day for Women” we put together a campaign that asked our readers to submit stories about the remarkable women in their lives who have been hugely influential in shaping their narratives toward the beauty, the strength, and the often-unspoken complexity of womanhood. We called this campaign “Leading Lady” – a role many would recognize primarily in film and television – because we believe every woman holds a central role in the lives of those around them.
Every year, we consume stories about important women who are celebrated for their contributions to the world. Starting this year, The Jakarta Post is launching a new tradition that highlights and celebrates the women in our lives. Mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, friends, mentors, colleagues, or that unassuming stranger we happen to cross paths with at some point in time – for they, too, deserve recognition.
We are beyond humbled to have received so many submissions from our readers and communities; and incredibly honored and excited to share some of these stories with you. You will find in these stories various acts of everyday courage, compassion, and kindness that lead toward extraordinary impacts – not only shaping the narratives of the storyteller, but also, hopefully, changing our own narratives on what it means to continue to support and celebrate the “leading ladies” in our lives.
Thank you for your participation in our “Leading Lady” campaign and we hope you are moved by the love, respect, and admiration expressed in these stories.
Dear Mother,
Remember the day I brought home an oversized poster of Shane Filan given by Laila? You couldn’t wait to hang it on our bamboo wall beside our bamboo bed where we both slept. You said “that man isn’t from here.” When I told you he is Irish, you jolted “Where is that?” I explained Ireland is a scenic tiny island floating with freedom on the wild Atlantic Sea, just underneath the United Kingdom. It takes a dozen hours by air to get there.
You found this amusing, “it sounds so far away, it must be close to the sun?” I explained again that sunrise in Indonesia will be midnight in Ireland; when Indonesians wake up to work, the Irish settle to sleep. “Where is the sun hiding?” you shook your head. I smiled.
I know your excitement wasn’t because of who was on the poster, but because it could cover holes pored over our old bamboo wall, preventing the night cold wind sneaking into your fleshless bare-bone, so that you could go to sleep warmer.
It was fourteen months before you peacefully departed to another life at the age of thirty-one because of a mysterious illness, so I was told. That day, your body looked like a piece of paper. Thinner than thin. Not even one fiber of flesh covered your bones.
I softly soaked your frozen body with the world's best jasmine water I could afford to buy from my wages of any work I did after school, thoroughly from your head to toe, over and over. I didn’t want to stop until the springs dried. It was my last moment to lock my teary, unfocused eyes on your face, your hands, your feet and your body.
The commotion swelled further beyond your body as you lived. Your best peaceful smile beautifully drew on your pale face. The contours of your face seemed to magnify your kindness, your happiness somehow. Even your closed eyes didn’t seem to be vacant. Your callused hands, battered by rough toxic chemical-involved work for more than three decades of your entire life, the hands that I would long for the touch for my entire life, were shrank and softened. Cracked heels of your feet stayed open as if they were windows letting out the shine illuminating from your brave heart to the world of mine.
Your motionless body looked like all bones in a bag of old brown wrinkled skin. Somehow I had strong feelings that you hadn’t lost consciousness, you were silently speaking to me, softly touching me, hugging me, but you weren’t breathing and your heart wasn’t beating.
In both Maduranese and Javanese culture, we don’t say goodbye but thank you, because we know we will meet again someday, somewhere, somehow. I was moved by your decency of your endless love and warmth, until your body was buried in your grave, until my heart was buried by remnants of memories we loved the most in this world lingered forever in mind. Thank you.
That poster of Shane Filan was like a graft of two living dreams twigged into a wishful hope, where you dreamed of having a warmer home to unfreeze yourself, and I dreamed of marrying an Irish man and building a home together.
Mother, I am here now, married to an Irish man who is so much more than just my husband.