A Gap in a Chain

 “When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – they are your family” Jim Butcher said. Apparently those words have to be considered by every person because a family is the precious gift ever which is given by God. Family is people who care about you without expecting anything, who love you in the pureness, and who stand by you no matter what the condition is. As I look back in the last decade, the harmony of my big family was kept very well but now it is left behind.

 When I was a child, exactly when I was 10 years old, I didn't know anything about family but my heart could feel that I had a happy, peaceful, and please family. We lived very harmonist at that time. My cousins and my family live apart each other because of different business in this life, but one thing that I really admired from my big family was the togetherness. Although we lived apart, we could still go to our village to assemble together, to help each other and to finish Balinese ceremony in my village. My village is located in Tejakula, exactly 30 kms to the east of Singaraja city. I assembled with my big family even when we had problem we would talk to find out the solution and took the right decision, but times goes on and everything has changed. Some people in my village feel jealous with my family and try to influence one by one of my family members. Unluckily the provocateur was successful cleavage the unity of my big family. That was very apprehensive situation because those who believe with the provocateur could not think logically.

I was 18 years old when the problem was going to be more complicated, even when my aunt had a serious disease but my family still stands with their egoism. My aunt got breast cancer which was very harmful for her life. Starting from one doctor to another doctor who was expert in cancer but nothing could make it better. Chemotherapy made her lost her hair and she did 5 times of surgeries, but it could not result good news. She felt a heavy painful in her breast; day and night she cried and screamed because she could not decrease the sickness. Medicines didn’t not work at all at that moment. I just wanted to cry when I saw the condition of my aunt, but the simple thing that I could do was supporting my aunt by saying “don’t give up; God will help you to get out from this suffering”. I felt a deep feeling when I saw just a small part of my family members care about my aunt, even just some of them who had willingness to take care of my aunt and stand by in the hospital one after another. The last surgery was passing; we hope that this will be successful, but unfortunately the doctor said that the cancer already spread and increase became brain cancer instead. I stuck for a while, felt like my blood stop flowing after hearing that news. 1 year passed until my aunt could not cure from this heavy sickness. She was desperate, she was pain, and lastly she died leaving 2 little children.

Disappointed was the only word in my mind because the other family members still did not take an action to help when the condition was so tense. I think they are adult even mature enough to face this problem, but in fact my perception was totally wrong. They abandoned their family because their mind was full of negative provocation. Now my aunt had already gone forever. I always remember when we could assemble together like what we used to do. This was the great lost ever in my family after a hard struggling. I lost the harmony in my family and lost my dear aunt at once.

Hopefully, she can live happily in the hereafter and this tragedy will never happen to us again. I hope my big family can be unified as a family and none of us wants to cleavage our togetherness. Sharing is important, however the situation is. Happiness and sadness have to be shared within the family. Surely, the power of unity can construct a great result even in the difficult situation.