moving out

I have been staying for more than four months in my parents' house (since I was about eight and a half months pregnant). It has been fun caring a new baby with very excited (and very helpful) grandparents and three aunts. Kind of sad moving out and staying back in our own home, just the three of us with the maid. It's only me and the baby in the afternoons when the daddy is working and the maid is doing the house chores. Sepi deh.

My mom, the dearest grandma, actually cried last night, when we were about to go home. She would be alone in the afternoons now, no more cheerful squeals and smiley chubby baby.

I wondered how my grandma, Emak, felt when we moved to Jakarta in 1990. The four of us grandchildren had been staying with Emak and Kung-kung for as long as we remembered. We left the two of them alone in their house in Semarang when we moved. I did not remembered if she cried, just like my mom did yesterday, on the day we started our journey to the capital city. But she must have felt the hardest change by then. Two children and four noisy grandchildren left the house at the same time, 10 hours car drive from them. Sepi banget deh.

Mama said that in our early years in Jakarta, whenever she (or Papa) scolded or punished us for our mistakes, we would call for our grandparents (teriak-teriak Kung-kung! Emak! keras-keras gitu). When it was the time to go back to Jakarta after a month holiday in Semarang, or after a brief visit somewhere in the year, all of us would cry in the car. One time, I remembered, Mama started to cry with us too when our car left their driveway.

God, for Mama who's alone at home now, for Emak in the hospital and Kung-kung at home in Semarang, please bless them and take a good care of them.

One day, I know, there will be a time when little Jove will grow up and left the house too... by then, I hope I can have enough courage and strength to handle the situation. C'est la vie.