Friends Forever

The friendship was started here..
on our holiday trip to Balekambang Beach back in 1991

As always Hari Raya holiday after fasting month of Ramadhan was the time for me to catch up with my old friends in high school. It had started even before facebook or any other social network was in cyber space. It's been more than 20 years this happened with one time I didn't attend it because I was in Australia in 2007. I didn't tell about my absence and they were looking for me. It was only after I was back to Indonesia I told them where I was. And it wasn't planned. I planned only two weeks there, but then my host parents asked me to prolong my stay to a month and reschedule my flight. So I did and there I was with them on another holiday during Hari Raya Holiday.



For this year gathering, we had scheduled it two or three months before. We knew during Hari Raya Holiday most of us would have agenda to visit family, relatives, other friends and neighbors even another gathering with our other friends either in or other towns. So we need to book the time in advance to avoid the crush. Of 38 students in the class there are about 10 regular attendees of this gathering including myself. The other 25 either couldn't go home because of work, live in another country, didn't know the plan or have drifted away from the pack that we called Mafia an abbreviation of society of physics-two which is our class in high school.

What we did when we meet is the almost the same like any other social gathering - people talk, people catch up, people eat with some children play. The one who have married and have children will bring their wife/husband and their children along. And it's alright. We tried to include them in as part of family. So I will be an aunt for them since I'm the one with no husband and children. Last time when one of my ex-boy friend came for the gathering - we were a class mate, they tried to re-match us. I am as I was, enjoyed all the fun and flirted some just to melt the iceberg hahaha... After that year, he seemed to drift away and absence from the event.

As always when I was around, the easiest meeting point would be my mom's house. It's the nearest to downtown of Batu in which we were all grown up and went to school. The location is also easily accessed since it is by side the road and they'd been there before. So most of them remember the place. After most of us arrived, we would then go somewhere. The late ones would be told to meet us on the spot. Sometimes we would go to a restaurant or recreation areas that scattered around Batu, sometimes we would go to our friends' house to pay respect to their parents and wish them happy Hari Raya and asking for their forgiveness. And this year we had planned to go to our friend's house - his mother's actually, because he works in Jakarta and lives in Bekasi, a nearby city.

Latest gathering 2013 in Entas'

After more than 20 years - this year was the 21th gathering, some have changed and some remain the same. Certainly we all have grown up, their bodies have shown the mark of a fatherly figure no longer the boys with all their skinny figure and their carelessness. As I looked at them talking and joking about the past, I felt grateful for their friendship.We never thought things will be as the way it is. With all their easy going and having fun, who would ever thought that one would be an IT manager in one of Japanese motor company, one would be a infrastructure contractor in Kalimantan, one would be an area manager of bakery shop, one would be an IT expert for a Indonesian pulp company and stationed in Canada, one would be an plastic distributor manager and one would a senior officer in pharmaceutical company and one would be a doctorate teaching in university majoring biochemical study, some would be employers, some would be house-mothers and some would be just common person with no credential whatsoever.

One thing I love about them is in so many changes they have been through, something remains the same. It is the friendship and sense of equality we shared since high school. There was no shame in admitting that they were bad in the past, yet they try to be a better person, a better father and mother to their children. Because we did remember who used to be late to class, to make noises during class, to annoy their other friends and who used to charm girls and look good for girls. And me, I used to almost all that hahaha... I ever got called for counseling for coming late, making noises during the class, annoying other students with exception of looking good for girls or boys. I hardly paid attention to my appearance. Today's status may be the result of it hahaha...

"Ohhh, I missed Balekambang. Now I missed this one. Next year
make sure I won't miss it Pa!" said Irma to her husband.
~ A meeting by the road ~

Since I'm the only girl who hasn't married, they have made their promise to make my marital reception as a another gathering event and jokingly said that they would bring their own meat ball (bakso) stall for the event to feed them all hahaha... This was after we had a meat ball feast in the last gathering :D I guessed they look forward to see me get married soon after a short deliberate misleading note I sent them that I'm happy after a phone call. Of course they didn't know that it was a phone call from my other friend telling me that she wanted to learn Self knowledge hahaha...

So they know me as a bad girl as well as a good girl. And with all the good and the bad in me, they accepted me as I was, am and hopefully will be. And I certainly accept them as they are and at the same time proud of them. I'm proud of their success, regardless the obstacle they had been through in the past. I knew some of them were so called bad boys in term of our local standard of being good boys.

We have planned for next year gathering. In fact the next two to three years had been booked that the gathering will be arranged in the house of each Mafia members who offered it. And I know that every gathering the event will be the same and the feeling of friendship remain the same. That's what we look forward to.

From friends we become like family with the husbands,
and wives and children.
~ In memoriam of Weny ~

I remember one of our friends Weny, who had died of cancer. It had been so many years that she lost contact with us. Until one day one of us met her and told her about this annual gathering. She made her time and brought along her family to attend and enjoyed the event, though she and her family are all Christian. When we heard that she was very sick, in our social network we fund-raised some money to help her family. I was there with some of our other friends to visit her. That is what friends are for, trying to be there in good time and the bad time.

Problem between friends happened too. There was one who decided to not attend the gathering after unpleasant thing happened between his friends with her wife. I could understand the situation and his decision. For him, we may just someone that had been part of his past and nothing special and important to be kept and treasured.

Can a 23 years of friendship be called best friendship? If so then their friendship is certainly one of the best friendship I ever have. I know they will always be my friends forever. They who know me and still can accept me in my bad time will certainly know and accept me in good time. And for that, I thank Allah for them. I pray for their welfare, health, guidance and direction to keep them in the path of truth.