A Parting Kiss at the Harbor

It was a rainy afternoon of April 2003. 

I was lonesome and felt no one beside me even though there were many friends and fellows. 

     I was still on the bed. My friends were busy in making a good preparation to go to the town. I knew that there was a football match, Immaculata (Football Club of the Minor Seminary of Lalian) against Ramelau, East – Timorenses’ Football club in Atambua. All my friends had gone to Atambua to watch the match. I felt not too good, as I was late. It rained when I woke up late in that afternoon. Yet, I tried to follow my friends. I was glad because when I walked along the garden, I could see that my father and my young brother were coming to me. For a long time I had never seen them and now I met them, and it made me happy.

     I shook my father’s hands, smiled at my young brother Andrew and together we walked to the living room. There we could share to each other many experiences. Sometimes I asked for any information about my mom, but both of my father and young brother kept silent. I asked for the same thing and they still kept silent, and so I wondered why. I did not believe in my father’s way of speaking that I asked him any news regarding my mom and now I knew that she had left my father. I kept silent, as I knew that my mom sometimes wanted to flee because of father’s bad manners. Then I asked for the reasons. Moreover, my father answered that she left my father after experiencing a bad and though treatment of my father. 

     Therefore, I understood that it was just like a nightmare. I kept silent as my father, Andrew and I followed my friends to the town to watch the football match. There we could see a spectacular goal made by Decky (a seminarian) after the match took place about 10 minutes. It was really a wonderful goal and I was satisfied. Only when the match went on and there was no more spectacular goal I looked back the bad condition of my beloved mom under my father’s bad treatment. Even though I remained standing beside my father and Andrew. Andrew seemed to be sadder than I was. I still waited for another spectacular goal that my friends might make. However, there was no more goal. Moreover, finally I had to accept it that Immaculata lost the match. In fact, this loss just made me more disappointed and never eased the pain of my heart. My father and Andrew took a minibus and went back to my village, a far rural area nearby the border of East Timor.

     The next morning when I woke up and heard the bark of a wild dog, I knew that I was in a bad condition. The bad condition about my family, I found it just like swallowing a bitter pill. 

     It was about 03.00 p.m, when I woke up and stepped to the chapel. There I was confused about how to say my broken heart before God, my Savior. Yet I tried to pray and asked for strength that I could be stronger than I was before. After experiencing this still and restful moment, I was back to the classroom trying to study. Nevertheless, the problem my father and mother were facing always crossed in my mind. I was almost frustrated when I realized that tomorrow I would enter the classroom to attend the national final test. I knew that my father and mother had really disappointed me. They were cruel. Never-mind, I thought it was nothing. I chose to keep smiling even in a bad condition like this. Finally, I entered the final test in such a broken heart. 

     A month later, I still wondered if father and mother were still apart. My prediction said that my mother and father were going to divorce. I was surer and surer about that, above all when I found both of them still being apart. “It might be something impossible that father and mother would reunite back”, my eldest sister, Mary Johanna said to me in one cold morning. But I still believed in God. I believe that something completely impossible with men is possible with God. Finally a miracle came. Because of their true love for us their children, my father and mother decided to love each other and to love us their children in the same love. I was extremely happy because of this miraculous fact. But I could say a thanksgiving to God my Savior. 

     Two days later, I went to the town and bought four tickets. The first one was for me, one for my eldest sister Johanna, one for my mother and the last one for my father. Then we four went to Kupang. Certainly my father, mother and Johanna accompanied me to the harbor before finally they let me went to Ruteng, the place where I was going to spend my two years for novitiate. There at the harbor I felt happy when seeing my father, mother and Johanna walked hand in hand. I was very happy that the day at the harbor was a beautiful day of my real family. 

     We still had five minutes for chatting each other. The ship was about to go. My mother drew me close to her and whispered these words, “My son… do not forget to be back home”. Then she covered her eyes with a handkerchief. She was sad. Johanna’s eyes were tearing. So were those of my father’s. I was glad even if I was going to leave them. It was because I was happy to see my mother, father and all my brothers reuniting in one love. At last, before mother, father and my eldest sister went back, I drew all of them and showed my real love in a parting kiss at the harbor.***

#oldstory

#2003