Nurani Ansell | Retiree

“My Beloved Mamah”

 It was Tuesday, 25th March 2003 and the sunshine was warming my face from the window of my bus on the way to work. I was feeling so blessed and happy, but (that) did not last long as I got an overseas call from my sister-in-law that my beloved mum was dying.

If I wanted to see her I had to go home as soon as possible. Suddenly my feelings changed after that call, I was saddened and confused as I didn’t know - would I have the time to prepare to fly to Jakarta??

Anyway, perhaps my mum already understood my situation; she passed away later that day in the evening, Sydney time. So there was no way for me to get to go home to kiss her goodbye because in my culture she had to be buried within 24 hours after passing away. I could only cry and feel I would regret that for the rest of my life!

I tried to let it go and surrender my feelings of regret and sadness at not being able to kiss her goodbye for years and years afterwards, but deep down inside me it was still there, unfortunately. Was it because the bond between a mother and her children is very strong??

But when my father passed away on 26th January 2010, and again I couldn’t go home, for some reason I didn’t have the same feelings of regret at not being able to kiss him goodbye, even though I was as close to him as to my mum. The death of my dad was a turning point for me to deal with this feeling of regret after my mum's passing. Because the family later planned to move my mum's remains to be buried next to my dad’s in a family burial place outside Jakarta.

I was so happy and with my sister’s help I could fly back to Jakarta to attend the reinterment process. My mum's body was originally buried in a cemetery in a suburb of Jakarta and was to be moved to one in Cipanas, 2hrs from Jakarta. It was a very special ceremony to collect my mother's remains from the grave, done by people familiar with how to do it properly. It was carried out on Friday, 6th August 2010; on that day I cried so much, as if my mother had just passed away that day.

All the rest of her family were crying too after seeing my sadness. When the gravedigger passed me my beloved mum's skull ... (OMG I’m still crying as I write this) I took it and straight away I kissed her forehead…believe it or not all my burden of regret I had carried for years just disappeared like that... gone, vanished and I felt so light, and such relief and stopped crying, it was strange but TRUE.

I thanked God for this amazing blessing to relieve me of this burden which I had carried inside me for almost 7 years. May Almighty God forgive me and grant my mum a beautiful place in heaven, amen.

—Nurani Ansell (2023)

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