From Bandung, with love :)

I don’t mean to be poetic by writing this, I just think I need to write this explosive feeling that I keep lately. This writing is about my dearest three sisters and brother

I am the first child in my family. As I said, currently I have four cute younger siblings and I hope it will always be just the four of them hahah :”D. maybe one of you think, in this modern era, how come there still be a family with that number of children? Well, maybe indeed now the most family only have maximum three children. Even the government suggests its people to follow Keluarga Berencana Program that has a tagline “cukup dua!”. However, yes, this is my family with five children. The thought of will be having four siblings never came across my mind, to be honest. I used to think that I would have at least two younger siblings. Even when I was 5, I refused to have a sister. At that time, my mom was pregnant and I was about to have my first sister. But because of her pregnancy, she wasn't able to accompany me during school (yes, my mom used to wait me up at school until the bell rang). When the age of the pregnancy entered 7 months, she stopped picking me up at school and asked my aunt to do the job instead. Because of all of that, I didn’t want to have any sibling. But of course I didn’t really mean that. As any other first child did, I only felt a little bit jealous of my baby sister who got more attention from my parents.

My mom gave a birth of my second sister in 2000, which means that was when I was 7 years old. A year after that, my brother was born. At that time I thought that my brother would be the last siblings I had. But then 4 years after that, my last sister was born. My youngest sister’s birth was the most unpredictable among all of us. The day when she was born, I was going home from school by ojeg when suddenly my father said that he needed to go to hospital immediately and wanted to use the ojeg I rode. I got confused and worried at the same time, but my father didn’t explain much and just simply said “ibumu melahirkan lagi” I was like WHAT??? When the hell does my mom get pregnant? Seriously I didn’t even notice her tummy getting bigger or something, neither did all of the people in my house. Got so many questions stucked, why my mom didn’t tell me about that? or did my dad even realize that he was going to have one more child? and so on. But then again everything was meant to happen that way, so yeah there that goes.

Anyway, after that suddenly I became a big sister of 4 little annoying siblings. I could say that not a single day we got through without fighting or one of us crying. At that time, my family started to stop having family vacation on holidays. Even when visited our grandma, one of us had to just stay at home, because the taxi didn’t have enough space for the 7 of us. My mom started to change the milk we used to drink every morning, from the expensive one to the medium-cost one. There’s this rule in my family, if we want to bring food home, we have to bring a lot amount of it –so everyone gets their part and we wont fight over the food-- , either way, just eat it on your way home or just don’t even think to buy it (Or, the alternative I often took, was to hide the food in my bag and eat it somewhere safe, like in the locked room or in the bathroom :) ).

When family’s financial was down, was the hardest time for us, I could say. After my dad’s retirement, I entered college. As the oldest child, of course there're so many hopes that my parents put on me. That’s why since I was little til I am this old, may dad keeps telling me which path I should take. Like when I had to choose my major, or when my dad forced me to take a scholarship to Japan (which, to be honest, i felt a little relieve failing). Honestly it really depressed me. But then again I realized it’s for my own sake, or maybe precisely, it’s for my family’s sake. I realized that I had to do something to support my family’s financial, if it’s not now at least after I graduated from college, otherwise the money won’t be enough to keep my four siblings get 12 years formal education.  Sometimes I wonder why Allah gives me these amount of siblings? so many things I thought I lost by having the four of them. Yes, at that time I was blinded by the feeling of ungrateful.

As I grow older, especially after I moved to Bandung and lived apart from my family, I started to realize that what I currently had is the best gift and life scenario that Allah granted me. I realize how lovely my siblings are. Their innocence, their kind heart, their curiosity, their spoiled smile, their surprising idea, their making-me-laugh-attitude. Those are just………….things I always miss when they’re not around.

I realize there are so many positive sides from having four siblings. the first one is you’ll never be lonely. Seriously, sometimes when I go home, one or two of my siblings are not home, busy doing their school stuffs, but it’s still okay because there are two others to play with. Having siblings means that there will be always a person whom you can ask for help, to accompany you to go somewhere, whom you can share with, or simply a person whom you can get a hug from and there will always be someone who misses you, who wants you to go home, who welcomes you happily and becomes sad when you leave. Siblings are the person you can tell your jokes to without worrying whether it’s funny or not, the only person, beside your parents, who love you the way you are that you don’t even have to become anybody else in front of them. And I think when we become an adult, siblings are number one relatives you can rely on if you’re having a problem. Moreover, for me right now, my siblings are my motivation, the reason that keeps me fighting through college life. The reason why I keep running my life the way my dad told me. Sometimes, when I’m down, I just simply call home to hear their voices, and then with a lil bit self encouragement, I am back again ready for struggling. They are smiles I’d like to see when I become a success person someday. I wish they'll always be granted with a healthy, happy, and prosper life. May they'll always be in Allah's protection. I hope that we could always be like we are now, caring each other, until we can make our parents proud of us, until we become independent and build our own life, until we had our own grandchild :’)

So through this post I want to say to four little sunshine of mine, Nisa, Devi, Daffa, Dhira, KAKAK LOVES YOU SO SO SO MUCH, TOO MUCH THAT SOMETIMES I FEEL MY HEART IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE hahaha send my infinite best wishes for all of you! 

love,

your oldest-caring-sister