September Rain
September 18, 2019
I was at the hospital.
My father was hospitalized due to heart attack and chronic kidney disease. He
was at HCU room where nobody except my mother could enter. I sat on the
floor in front of the door waiting. It
was 2 a.m. It was so damn quiet since nobody’s around. They were waiting
in a more comfortable place, a glass room with no door 20 meters from this
room. It was very cold we did not prepare anything coming here.
I looked around when
they were coming. Two nurses in white uniforms pushed a wheeled stretcher with a
patient wearing breathing aid followed by 70-year-old husband and wife holding
hands crying. Hhh...it happened again. The reason I never liked being in the
hospital, no one did. The smell, the screaming, the feeling full of fear, and anyone
should always be ready with any kind of news. Like two people passed away these
two days. Many have entered this room and ICU as well. It’s really tiring.
I was no longer alone
here. The 70-year-old husband and wife leaning against the wall beside me,
teary eyes. The husband wore a shabby old man's dark green coat, dark brown
pants, flip flops, and black kopyah
whose the edges already turned into brown. The wife wore kebaya like my grandmother used to wear, so beautiful yet the color
was already dull.
They got married in
1994, had a baby boy in 1996, the only child they had. The boy got married in
2017. He was 20 and his wife 21. Just last year, due to the family economic
issue, his wife went for Hongkong to work. The typical story from the city I
was born. Early marriages, economic issues, migrant workers, and (unfortunately)
divorces.
A nurse opened the
door. We spontaneously stood up, my chest pounding. She called the boy’s name,
not my father's. They both walked in a hurry and stopped in front of the door,
taking off their sandals when the nurse immediately prohibited it. They put them back and stepped in giving the entire room salam.
I was alone again. I then could no longer hold back the rain.
- RSUD Dr. Soedono Madiun, 18 September 2019
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