Our expat life is such that introductions and farewells happen regularly.
We celebrate these occasions with coffee mornings and promises to meet again. At school, the leaving children are given t-shirts on which their classmates have sketched hearts and written forget-me-not messages.
Many farewells happen during end of the school year. This year, too, the leaving children wore their t-shirts at the school assembly and we bid them goodbye as they went to other countries to begin their new adventures.
Radja, however, left us without saying a proper goodbye.
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We first saw Radja when he was at pre-nursery with our daughter. His chubby round moon-like face and almond eyes were unlike any other.
“Hey, you are named after a King” we told him.
He rewarded us with a grin which showed his bunny teeth.
As the years passed, we saw him grow into a tall, handsome boy with a toothy smile. He was so much a part of our daughter’s childhood that he was like one of our own children. His coy mother always brought traditional Indonesian pandan cakes at our class coffee mornings and was an active volunteer at any activity at school. She had three sons at the school and she cared for them with selfless love that only a mother can give.
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In the last week of July, Radja came to the class end-of-the-term beach class party with his mother. He had fun with the other children, and as the darkness gathered in the sky, we wished each other happy and safe holidays.
In his Indonesian hometown, Radja was admitted to the hospital for a serious illness. Although he had two surgeries, the doctors could not save him. He passed away in mid-September.
The sad news was broken to his classmates by the head teacher as gently as possible but their little hearts sagged with grief. For parents, it was even more difficult. We could not fathom the depth of the feelings of Radja’s parents and brothers. We consoled each other and wept in each other’s arms.
We hugged our own children tightly and chose to believe that Radja had gone to a beautiful place from where he did not want to return because it was paradise.
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I met Radja’s mother the day after she arrived from Indonesia.
I realised how thin she had become as we embraced each other.
“His voice” she sobbed “is still in the house”. He used to pop into the kitchen and declare “Mummy, I love you!”
She remembers everything. She is surrounded by friends who constantly console her.
She manages to send me a smiley whenever I text her.
She is a brave girl.
May God give their family the strength to bear this loss. Amen.
(In this casual class picture provided by the school last year, Radja is the boy in the blue t-shirt giving a confident pose for the camera. Front row, third from right.)
