Today, I'm reminded again how this life is but a stepping stone to the afterlife. Covid took away my thesis supervisor, my professor. Our most recent conversation took place just a few days ago. We got Covid around the same time in early August, but he's old and could only handle herbal remedies. We talked a lot during that time. Even in sick, he wrote research articles with his colleagues and me. He told me at the end of August that he was starting to feel better.
When I heard the news, I didn't quite understand how to react. It was clearly shocking, and I just froze as my brain struggled to process what was going on. Later that afternoon, I looked him up on Google and found his channel. He wrote his last poetry 2 weeks ago, narrated it with photographs of his house and garden, entitled it "going home". As I listened to his voice, that's when the feeling hit. Nothing could stop my tears for a good 20 minutes.
He was a quiet man who kept to himself. Never talked more than necessary. His voice was soft and he spoke slowly. But when he read poetry on stage, he was a completely different person. His voice loud, saying each word as if it’s the soundtrack of a battle he’s fighting. His passion has always been literature (sastra). I could say he lived up to his name, as he looked most alive when he talked about the power of words.
