Farewell

On 27 Dec '03, my family comitted the ashes of four relatives to the sea: my grandparents on my mother's side; my aunt, who's my mom's youngest sister; and my cousin, the youngest daughter of the aforementioned aunt. The day started with an early morning mass in Bandung (Here, here, and a hand-drawn map here). After which we retrieved their ashes from a colombarium maintained by the church, and drove up to Jakarta. Thankfully, the roads weren't too crowded with traffic and we arrived in Jakarta in relatively short time.

We did it off the coast of one of the islands in Pulau Seribu (literally, Thousand Islands) (More info here and here). My uncle, the widow of said aunt, chartered a boat for us. He's a marine engineer, and I think the boat belongs to his company. The coordinates, if you're interested, is: South 05� 57.135, East 106� 51.129.

Incidentally, Pulau Seribu is a relatively well-known diving and deep-sea fishing spot.

Later on in the evening, we had mass at another aunt's house, after which there was a reminiscence session friends and relatives who were there related their memories and anecdotes about them, and the letters from those who couldn't be there were read. Most of them was about my grandad, who died when I was 9, just when I was old enough to begin to realize what a wonderful person he was. And listening to the others speak of him, I realized that he was a greater man than I could have possibly known.

And for the first time in years, I cried.

Regretting that I never had the chance to really know him.

Regretting that he died before I was old enough to understand him.

But that's the thing about regrets, isn't it? It doesn't solve anything. And I guess the best I can do is to try to live up to his ideals so that when I'm gone, people will remember me just as they remember him.

So long, you guys. I'll miss you, and I'll always remember you.