The day before she left

Saturday, 15 June 2017

"Papi, is ninik doing well? Its been five hours since  I and gran called this morning,"I askeed with hope.

Gran was one of my father's home-stay parents back when he studied in Griffith university for his Master degree in the nineties. Earlier in the morning, I remembered waking up to receive bad news from gran who was running through facebook that morning. Exactly the day before, we called my father and we spoke on how she has been improving after the time when she nearly got into the ICU.

"She is not doing well at all Alexa, could you please call Virgin air to reschedule your flight to Monday or probably tomorrow. Please pray for her as only prayers could help Alexa, you might be in Australia and she is in Indonesia. Pray for her Alexa, please,"he answered as he began to crack.

I only muttered an okay and started mumbling on how bad the condition is, auntie
She got into the Intensive Care Unit this morning which gave me a heart attack but I still had hope. I remembered that she was the one who said that when there seems to be no way out, just pray to God for He will aid you with the help that you need or even more. Those words were not said like a tape recorder which repeats what it recorded but she told me about it from her experience, not one but plenty.

I need to stay positive but I could not stop crying, as the post in my dad's younger sister's facebook made me lose it. Why are you telling everyone that you are counting the last hours? Why not motivate her to stay till Monday or Friday? But all I could do was act like I was strong. Show that I could stay positive. If only I spent more time with her, I guess that our goodbye would have been easier or perhaps if I wasn't very stubborn about going back early. I could have motivated her through the Hillsong or Planetshakers songs that we listened to on our last days together, which was what made her smile a lot. This condition was rather expected and unexpected but not prepared.

I ran to Auntie Tanya who was with Gwen, Alyssa and Owen and started crying. I asked them to pray for her and they did. We still had hope that I'll make it in time, we really did and Gwennie tried to make me smile by giving me the tiny lady beetle which cheered me up a bit due to her sweetness. We then went to Pa and Gran's to have dinner together and we attempted to call my dad which was a failed one as only weird sounds of a broken connection could be heard. The dinner was truly amazing but the message from dad was much better.

'You do not have to cancel the flight, she's getting better'

With that, I knew that I could sleep properly. But it did not last for long, my mother called after dinner and said that she is getting a flight to Melbourne then back to Jakarta for me. I tried to search for Gold Coast or Brisbane flights but its either I'll have to wait till Tuesday or it is too expensive.
After hours of planning and packing, my mother purchased the ticket at one in the morning, Brisbane time. I struggled to sleep that night as regret and fear brimmed my mind, the pillow was wetted by my tears as I cried myself to sleep while praying with hope.

We were far from each other but Jesus is mighty, my prayers could cross the oceans. He healed her when she dropped last year and I remembered how she proved the power of prayers to us with that.