I never imagined grandma's house was this far away. She said it was just in the next village. It turned out to be quite a distance too.
I was already starting to drag my feet walking behind her, but she didn't show the slightest sign of fatigue.
"Enough Non, just go home! The road is muddy and dirty! You'll get tired." Momentarily, she told me to go home
"Never mind Nek, take it easy. Just calm down."
"Still far away, Non!"
"It's not every day, Nek."
Today I had made up my mind to visit Grandma's house. If I hadn't been forced, my grandmother wouldn't have let me come to her house. 'Nenek's house is ugly, I'm embarrassed.' That's always her excuse.
For me, it was a privilege to be able to walk freely anywhere on weekdays during working hours, it was great to have so much free time after quitting my job.
She is a vegetable seller around the housing complex. Her name is Nenek Sainah, Nenek means Grandma. Her body is old, but her movements are still agile, carrying the basket of vegetables and selling it door to door.
I usually matched my cooking menu with what she was carrying at the time.
Every time I came, she would immediately sit on the floor of the front porch of the house while taking out vegetables and herbs from her basket and waiting for me to come out. She never wanted to be invited inside, just to have a cup of tea or a little breakfast.
"Well, I love Non's company. Non is like my granddaughter. Very kind. Non is really dear to my heart."
"What's her name, Nenek's granddaughter? Where is she now?".
"She passed away, Non. Her name is Narti."
"Ooh...I'm sorry"
After almost two hours, we walked, through rice fields, bamboo forests, past flooded rivers, past fields, rambutan gardens, past graves, weeds, cows, their cages, and muddy roads due to the rainy season, and finally arrived at a place that... ah I feel familiar with this place. I think I've been to this place before, but when?
I stopped looking around; there was an old well with mossy walls, frangipani trees, small pebbles on the damp ground, and weeds starting to grow. I've been in this place before, but not here. So where?
"Come on, Non, Come in," Grandma called from across the field. Grandma was standing at the end of an alley that turned out to be a small road leading to her house. And this place turned out to be Grandma's backyard.
Ah, I remember now. I've dreamed of this place. This place once existed in my dreams! What a strange dream. I've come to this place previously in my dream.
"When Nenek walks alone, Nenek always hangs out with Gusti Allah. Dear God, please give me a healthy body. Good fortune, the blessing that flows ..." Grandma tells the story as we arrive at her house. "Nenek can't stay at home doing nothing, the body feels sick when I don't work." she continued.
I silently listened to the story. After I had watched for a long time, Nenek Sainah's face turned out to be very similar to my real grandmother's. It seemed like the passed grandmother was present in front of me. My eyes are dazzled. It's right; my grandmother came back to life!
***
I remembered the last time I was with my grandmother, just the two of us in the room. It had been almost a week since she was lying in her room. I was praying and reciting surah yasin when I felt her back which was warm slowly become cold, the cold creeping from the lower part of her body slowly up to the upper part, her chest, and neck until it was cold all over her body, then she closed her eyes. Gone for all time.
She died in my lap. She didn't leave a word for me, but there were so many memories with her because I was her favorite grandchild.
In the past, my grandmother sold vegetables in the housing complex of the rich in my village. Unlike Nenek Sainah's, my grandmother carried the vegetables and groceries she sold in a rinjing carried by a long cloth slung over her shoulders and tied with the end of the other cloth over her waist, and a tampah carried on her head.
When I had a day off, I would sometimes join her in selling, walking next to her, and often staying behind her. Every time she came home from selling, she would buy snacks for me.
"So if Nenek sells every day, don't you get tired?" I asked out of my reverie.
"When I'm not selling, I go and collect dry branches for cooking. Kerosene is expensive, Non, so I use wood to cook." She continued. "But even then I rarely cook, there are just people who come to give me food".
"Ooh... then what do you use the money from selling? How much profit do you make a day if the vegetable runs out?"
"I get the vegetables from the stall, and after I deposit them, I usually have ten or twenty thousand left over. I use it to fill the kencrengan at the mosque." That's how grandma referred to the charity box. "Every time I go to recitation, I never forget to put in the money that I earn from selling. One thousand, two thousand, or five thousand every day. If I am sick and can't go to the mosque, I usually entrust your neighbor to put the money in the kencrengan."
I Stunned.
'When she is sick, unable to go to the mosque; she keeps donating with the help of a neighbor.
Never in my life have I come across something like this, entrusting a neighbor to put money into the charity box at the mosque.
How ashamed my heart is. Ashamed of myself, sometimes I'm ashamed to give a little but I still think a lot about giving a lot. This grandma worked only because she wanted to be able to give and give everything she had, without expecting anything, just wanting to be loved by Gusti Allah.
***
In front of my real grandmother's grave, my eyes were glassy. I had never visited her grave since she was buried. It was because of Nenek Sainah that I visited my grandmother's grave in the village.
The condition was very unkempt, the tombstones were covered in moss, grass, and wild plants grew here and there, almost covering the entire grave. I ignored it for a long time. I never took the time to make a pilgrimage to her grave when I returned to my hometown.
Maybe my grandmother missed me. Or maybe it was me who secretly missed her. The longing was never expressed because it was blocked by time and space. Then Nenek Sainah came to remind me.
I cleared the weeds, then stood in front of the grave and sent a prayer. It felt like she was looking at her granddaughter and smiling from beyond.
***
Back in the village, I brought gifts for Nenek Sainah. I almost got lost as I didn't find the muddy road with moss and weeds like the one I walked the first time to her house; now the small road is clean, and Nenek's house is also different.
And to my surprise, the occupants of the house said that Nenek Sainah had long passed away.
***