Heroes In Times Of Peace

Heroes In Times Of Peace  

Moved seeing a kitten in death-agony on the road, a youth took the courage, overcame his reluctance, stopped the traffic to pick her up and carried it to the  safe roadside.  Although he blamed the careless driver who caused it in his heart, yet he felt a warm feeling after having done this.  And he pondered. Is it her fault to be fated  to be born as just a kitten? Suppose she was a human being or born in The Netherlands, then she wouldn’t have to face such a lot. They told him that  just for the sake of frogs on parade crossing a road, police stopped the traffic.           

I remember a Dutch woman who was crooked, bent of old age invited me to her house. It wasn’t a house, but instead a dark shed waiting to be broken down among the remaining ruins of a house. She was welcomed with joy by her dogs, dogs she saved, picked up from the street. 

Wearing a worn-out dress, old shoes, walking carefully, step by step with her stick and nobody to escort her, she climbed up the tram to the Glodok market everyday to collect thrown away bones for her dogs. There was nothing too dangerous, no work, no task too low,  too dirty, too hard for her if it were for her dogs. 

When she was offered to return to the Netherlands with a pension and accommodation for life she chose to stay here in Jakarta with her dogs. And I remember the story of Yudisthira* who refused to enter heaven, because he had to abandon his dog. And it was of her dogs that she herself didn’t want to go to heaven so early, so soon. That was some 30 years ago. 

Alas! Only in the eyes of a dog, her dogs, it’s master never was growing old but was always a loving, beautiful  and rich God’s guardian angel.

And I remember the  courage of a youth who sacrificed one of his kidneys to save his brother. Or the perseverance of a mother who lost her husband, raised her little  children by baking and selling  her home baked snacks, till they became university graduates. And what do you say of those that became vagrants to support themselves or their family, a job they are forced to create for themselves since there was no work, no free choice of employment, no just and favorable conditions of work,  contrary to the Human Rights declaration. 

Heroes in times of peace are gentle, without swords, arms, they’re not hailed, praised, sung, aren’t renowned, without a statue. They’re unnoticed  but a keen eye would find them around us. It might be a child or someone of old age, a man or a woman or even an animal 

Armed with love and kindness, these angels inspire us with their  daring, boldness and self sacrifice. They doesn’t need a heroes’ day to remember as those we love will always live again in our dear memories. 

* A hero in the Mahabharata epic      

From Media Indonesia, December 15, 1991