The Ocean

You’re like a wave washing the shore, brushing my feet slowly, gently, cold, and yet giving me warmth inside. And just like the wave, you soon let go of my feet, leaving me alone and wanting more, slightly drifted toward you. And there you are, back to the ocean, free and magnificent, drifting along with such force you always have in you.

And then you’ll be back again, touching my feet, offering such closeness and pleasure that I know will always be temporary, because you need to go back to the ocean only to come crashing me again.

But I always feel like all this time you’re somebody else’s tide. You’re wild and you soar high when you’re around them. You embrace them, make them dance along with you in the ocean.

All this time, I knew it all. But somehow I seem to forget about it every time you come back to the shore, gleaming under the sun. I know I can leave the shore whenever I want, moving somewhere else, finding a shelter that will protect me forever.

But I don’t. I keep standing there at the shore, waiting for your wave, hoping that someday, you’ll drift me to the center of the ocean, when you can finally become the tide that keeps me there forever.

A Piece of Thought on Life and Death

When I was lying down in my bed checking twitter a few days ago, I found out that a famous comedian in my country had passed away. The news went viral in just a matter of minutes, people posting up their condolences, praises, prayers, some of them skeptical whether it was just another hoax that bored humans love to do on the weird world of Internet.

And then there was this particular tweet that caught my eye, it was in Indonesian, but let me translate it to you. I couldn’t remember the exact words of it, but the gist was more or less like this, “He might have said some inappropriate jokes, some of us might have been offended by the things he had said, but he was one of the greatest comedians we had,”

Part of me was a bit bothered by the fact that this person managed to bring up such sensitive topic in a sensitive time.

Part of me agreed to what she said.

You know, the funny thing about death is, it brings you back memories of the person that is no longer there. It happens to make the image of the deceased more alive in our mind, yet more dead in our eyes. Our brain would remind us of what they looked like, what they used to say, how they treated us, how they made us feel.

So when I read that particular tweet, it reminded me of certain things that I agreed were not supposed to be said by any comedian in front of millions of people watching the television. He did receive numerous critics for it, and he did apologize later.

My mind was occupied with all that, when the weight of my eyes starting to betray my consciousness. So I decided to just put away my device and sleep the night off.

The next morning, the blazing ray of the sun coming through my window forced me to open my eyes. I rolled over to the other side of the bed, but I was too far awake to get back to sleep, so I gave up. I heard a distinct noise coming from the television outside my room, so I opened the door.

Now what I saw on the screen brought chills down my spine.

It was a live report of the situation in front of the comedian’s parents’ house, where the body was supposed to be delivered to, from a hospital in Singapore.

There were hundreds of people crowding up the whole area of the family’s property. Hundreds. There were reporters and a lot of cameras here and there, sure, but most of them were just citizens, people coming from I’m not sure what cities, but they were there to witness the whole process of the body’s arrival and funeral. They were there to deliver their condolences in person. They were there because they LOVED him.

One more funny thing about death, is that it makes you think back to its eternal counterpart. Life.

Now this comedian, apart from the sometimes-offensive jokes he had said, I know he was actually the kind of person who love to share, he loved helping other people in need. According to the rumours going around, he didn’t even hesitate inviting his fans – complete strangers, mind you – to his house because they came to the capital city to see his live show and didn’t have a place to stay.

That got me thinking. I realized that I have done nothing.

It hit me when I remembered the time I visited the library of my university. I was there to look for references for my thesis, but then I got curious once I saw some theses of my friends.

The topics they chose were interesting, but what particularly caught my attention was the acknowledgement page. It always does. I’m not sure why, but I like the way people write about other people close to them. The little thankful notes for their beloved ones.

Reading those pages made me smile, but it also kind of got me sad.

My name was nowhere to be seen.

I know it’s not their fault. I’m not blaming anyone. If any, I’m blaming myself. Because it only means that I haven’t made any significant impression or given much support to any of them. I simply just wasn’t there enough to be there.

Did you ever take a moment to think of what you have done for other people?

Did you ever think that, if you died right now, would you leave the people in your lives with good memories? Would they be thanking you for the things you had done for them? Would they miss you? Would they be sad letting you go?

I can’t seem to stop thinking about this.