I feel like I know you better now that you're gone, Bapak.

Selamat hari ulang tahun pernikahan, Bapak. 

Today is not your birthday. Not even the day when you left Mother and your daughters forever. But since it feels like you made more effort to be Mother's husband rather than a father, I decided to write this all today: on your wedding anniversary. When you're no longer with us. When I am the same age as you were when you married Mother.

Quick update: I am still married to no one.

You didn't miss anything. Chill.

We didn't have the best relationship, let's get real. We didn't talk that much. Most of our exchanges turned into arguments, fights without victors that only left the participants with heavy hearts and itching scars. Maybe I am not your favorite daughter, as you were a distant father to me. That's weird and a little bit sad, actually, because I have these fragments of shattered recollection where you put me in front of your old, rusty but trusty motorbike, and we rode around the village, looking over the vast spread of green ricefield, watching little boys playing football in the vacant lot nearby, counting the passing goats and buffalos under the soft warmth of the twilight sun, when I was small enough to not be able to retain the complete version of my own memory. 

What went wrong? 

You might question that, because I did. 

I still do. 

I still question why you never once said that I did a good job even if I brought home perfect scores on tests. I still question why you never asked what I wanted. I still question why you didn't let me grow my hair, wear skirts, or choose what shoes to wear to school when we bought them. As if everything I did is wrong in your eyes, not good enough, less than satisfying. So I took step back and when you didn't turn around and reached out your hands to me, I took another step. Soon we had a gaping crater stood between us. It didn't help at all when I knew that you actually wished for a son—had a whole plan to teach the hypothetical kid whatever things you love, and that plan crashed because it was me who came out of Mother, bloody and wailing, and very much a girl. It made me think that maybe if I were born a boy you could love me better, you could spare a second to actually listen, and you could be interested to know just how much I tried to be a good child. How I never asked for things twice after you said no. 

And you always said no.

For the decades we shared together, I don't remember you consuming arts or pop culture products. You listen to the radio daily, sure, but it felt more like the need to fill the stretching silence with background noises. Other than going to religious gatherings, your hobbies revolve around football and tennis, which eventually claimed your life. Maybe the only thing I'm grateful about with your sudden passing is that you died doing what you love, surrounded by your friends in your last moments. I don't know, probably you were happier there than at home. Maybe when you're with your friends, you can be yourself. You don't have a role to fulfill, a duty to perform. Out there, you're neither a failing husband nor a withdrawn father, you're just... you.

Out of the blue, you're not coming back home.

Then I found myself cleaning up your things. Folding old and new clothes, opening boxes, reading sheet after sheet of paper, trying to figure out what to keep, what to donate, and what to throw out. That afternoon I sat on the floor, pulling shelves open, rummaging through parts of your life I've never met and known.

And I saw them.

Your school diplomas with your signature I've never seen before. I guess even you had them too, that awkward time period when you need to sign things but had no idea how to do that, so you just wing it. I call them signature prototypes.

Shelves full of unused birthday presents. The brand-new ties. Crisp shirts, now yellowing from age and bad air circulation. The leather wallet Mother bought for you at the local department store because she knew your old wallet almost turned into shreds, now cracked. Everything we got you as birthday presents for year after year until we didn't do it anymore. Because you never wore them, never used them, never carried them with you. Giving you gifts felt like throwing things into a black hole; it sucks every matter and substance in view and they could never appear again.

Until that afternoon, apparently.

Because you hoarded them. You collected them as if they were rare items when we gave it to you every year. You lined them up like museum pieces. You kept them brand-new and untouched when we wanted you to make full use of them, to give them tear and wear as the time goes by. For years we swallowed the bitterness clutching on our throat, because it seemed like you preferred the cheap, badly-made things you bought for yourselves rather than the presents we carefully selected with the little money our household managed to spare.

So I sat around dozens of old, time-worn packages of nice things that never got a chance to shine. You didn't take them along with you when you were alive, despite knowing they all wouldn't follow you to the grave. You left them behind, for me to find. You let me deal with all these mixed feelings, anger and disappointment and frustration and god knows what else. 

I found them, too. Rows and rows and rows of old cassette tapes, branded with well-known names of Indonesian 70s and 80s bands and singers, all the ribbons and lyric sheets intact. I asked Mother, "Lho, Ma, ini kaset-kaset koleksi Mama ya? Disimpen di sini semua." She told me, "Bukan, itu semua punya bapakmu. Mama sejak dulu nggak nyetel lagu." Mother said she doesn't know why you never played them again, although we still have a working cassette player. We always have.

What went wrong, Bapak?

Did you fall out of love with them? Did you 'outgrow' them, or were you forced to stop doing what you like because people around said that you shouldn't do that anymore, after being a man with a family? How long did you hold back, restraining yourself for the sake of answering people's expectations and fit in their standards of manhood? Did you feel empty after being robbed of self-actualization all these years, and that was one reason that caused your bad temper? If you loved music to the extent of collecting them oh-so carefully, why did you often yell angrily at me when I hummed my favorite song as I swept the floor or washed the dishes? Were you mad because you thought you no longer had the liberty to enjoy things, as I did so freely and openly? Was watching me gave you pain because I was a reminder of the much, much younger version of you? 

The you that you've lost, or worse, threw away? 

Did my personality that makes me able to immerse myself in books and movies and music actually come from you? How much parts of you I inherited without knowing? How much of yourself did you see in me?

Now all I have are tons of questions you could not provide answers to and a piling crumbs of clues. Of course you'd never respond to them. I don't think you'd give any explanation, even if I asked you when you were still here. I feel like journeying without a compass, following only a faint trail, trying to head to a place where I could get the whole picture of you. I have the lead, yet I can never be too sure.

But you know what's funny? I feel like I know you better now that you're gone, Bapak. Because while you may not provide an answer or cannot confirm a single thing, there is nothing you can hide now. 

The boxes are all opened.

The keys are in my hands.

z. d. imama