Weeping and Laughing Make Our Lives Meaningful

Our beloved sister Yap Lie Tjoe passed away in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, on September 22, 2023. She is the eldest of seven siblings and my wife Liena is her youngest sister. She was 81 years, 14 years older than my wife.

We knew that the fateful day would come, but not that soon. Her health has indeed been waning, especially during the last few years.

About a year ago, when we visited her in Pontianak for a week, we still managed to urge her to play the piano. Using a walker, she slowly walked to the living room, where the piano was placed. She gingerly touched the keys with her rather stiff fingers. A hymn filled the room, not her best performance of course, but it was probably the last song she played in her life.

Lie Tjoe has played thousands and thousands of hymns at the largest Protestant church in Pontianak throughout her life. She was one of the main pianists for more than 40 years. When her age reaching slightly over 70, her legs were getting wobbly and weaker. She decided to retire.

Yap Kiem Pun, her father, passed away when she was only 14. Gouw Su Khiem, her mother, had to continue running the family business as tea distributor. So, Lie Tjoe had to help taking care of her younger brothers and sisters, moreover my wife who was just two months old.

She silently endured the hard and long years of pains and suffering in her teenage years, and she never complained. She and her younger sister Lie Hwa even managed to take free private piano lessons offered by a foreign Catholic nun. For several years.  

She decided not to get married and spent all her life to serve the Lord at the church and to take care of her aging mother, younger siblings and even nieces. At the church, she was a Sunday school teacher for several years before concentrating as the pianist. She also gave private piano lessons at home to whoever wanted to master the instrument.

We deeply missed her because she had silently supported our family during the hardest years of our marriage in the early 1980s. These included purchasing a house at the newly-developed housing estate in Jakarta so that we could live in a more comfortable and healthy home. We lived there for three years before we could afford to install a house of our own.

We are really blessed and praise the Lord for having such a loving, humble, selfless and faithful sister like her.

There was no brothers and sisters, including us, who were shedding tears during the funeral ceremony until her cremation day. We were all, as human beings, weeping inside and deeply missing her, but her demise was something for us to celebrate. Lie Tjoe has shown us all how we should live our fragile and fleeting lives: by extending kindness and help to those in needs and to commit our skills and mastery to glorify our Creator.

Less than two months later, on October 11, another major event occurred in our family lives. Our second and youngest daughter Lia gave birth to a baby boy in Jogjakarta. She and her husband Dani decided to name him Tetuko.

That day, we drove all the way — 500kms plus – from Serpong to Jogjakarta to embrace the good news and meet our first grandson. We met them all at the Hospital the next day. We were meeting Tetuko for the first time: such a small and fragile baby right in front of our eyes at the solemn hospital room.

Months earlier, Lia has informed us that she would give birth to a boy. She even took a short video of her bulging stomach and how Tetuko managed to create small protrusions on the ballooning stomach.

We were all very grateful that Lia could naturally give birth and they were all in good condition. Tetuko was 49cms and 3.11kgs on the first day of his birth. Two or three days after returning home, we managed to get a photo of Tetuko smiling during his sleeping.

His smile represents all our smiles and gratitude for the blessing and goodness of the Lord to our family. We embrace the arrival of our grandson with joy and gratefulness. Yes, once in a while, Tetuko cried with all his heart, whether due to his empty stomach or wet diaper.

But, his existence among us has made all our hearts and souls smiling. We are all amazed that such a human being, such a living creature, could appear among us. This awareness that we could be a part of the Lord’s creation is just amazing and far from our mortal understanding.

We can only pray that Tetuko will grow and grow and become a person who will embrace a strong faith in God. We pray that he will become a character who will be able to give support to those in needs and discover that through such gentle act he would find his real calling in his life.

We can only pray that he would be able to reach the finish line of his life journey as faithful and as elegance as his grandmother Lie Tjoe, who has no opportunity to meet him face to face. We pray that we would still have several more years to show our love to our grandson.

Good bye Dear Sister Lie Tjoe. Till we meet again someday. Welcome Tetuko. May you have very meaningful years ahead as what grandma Lie Tjoe has enjoyed.

And may you always celebrate all the sorrows and joys along your life path because they are the real ‘parents’ to lead you to the true meaning of your creation, your very existence.

Joy and sorrow are never separated. When our hearts rejoice at a spectacular view, we may miss our friends who cannot see it, and when we are overwhelmed with grief, we may discover what true friendship is all about. Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy. If we try to avoid sorrow at all costs, we may never taste joy, and if we are suspicious of ecstasy, agony can never reach us either. Joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth. (Henri Nouwen)

(HS – Nov 2023)