My Mother

My mother was born in Karawang, November 8^th 1952, but she grew up in Purwakarta. Her name is Renny Syafrini. Her parents had six daughters, my mother is the fifth. Her father was a civil servant. His name’s Raden Husein Singawinata. The name Singawinata is still very popular in Purwakarta until now. My mother grew up in a wealthy and well known family, but that didn’t make her spoiled. She did her duty by herself, like made her bed, swept the floor, and watered the plants. Her father passed away when she was on the fifth grade, and her mother passed away when she was in junior high school. So, I never met my grandparents, I can only see their pictures.

After my grandparents passed away, my mother lived with one of her elder sisters in Sukabumi. She studied at SPG, and after graduated, she became a teacher in an elementary school. She met my father there, he was the headmaster of that school. And then they married in April 22^nd 1976.

My mother now is a headmistress in an elementary school. The teachers know her not only a kind person, but also a strict headmistress. My mother always follows the rules. She also cares about everyone in her school. She always fights for what she thinks right. Every time she has to move to another school, everyone in her former school felt so sad. They wanted to keep her as their headmistress forever. But that was impossible. So, they just have to let her go, and they usually gave her something as their gratitude to my mother. They gave her tea set, rug, something like that. Three years ago, they even gave her a washing machine, something that my mother really wanted.

In every organization, they always choose my mother as the treasurer. Maybe it’s in our blood, because my father, my brother, and I myself, always be a treasurer. They trust us to keep the money. So, everyday we always deal with money, money, and money. Dealing with money is not an easy thing, it is very sensitive. We have to deal with people who wants to borrow some money. It is not a problem if they return the money on time, but if they do not, that would be my mother’s responsibility as a treasurer. Sometimes my mother feels tired to be a treasurer, but everyone always says that there’s nobody’s like her, nobody can replace her position. Of course that’s not true, there are so many people who can be a good treasurer like my mother, they just can’t find one yet.

My mother has a beautiful voice. She loves singing, especially oldies and sundanese songs. She always spends her leisure times to play music on VCD player, and then sings along. I like singing as well, but my voice is not as good as hers.

We have 16 cats. My mother loves cats. I love cats too, but having so many cats, I don’t really like it. Sometimes when my mother finds an abandoned cat, she always brings the cat home. That’s why we always have so many cats. We spend about 300 thousand rupiahs a month just for buying cat’s food only, not including rice. My mother feed them twice a day. When we have to leave home for a few days, my mother always asks my cousins to stay at home and feed them. My mother always makes sure that they feed the cats on time, she calls them by phone everyday. My mother once said that she cares about cats more than she cares about me, because I can find my own food if I’m hungry, but cats don’t.

I have hundreds of books, novels, comics, magazines, tabloids, because I love reading. I think I got it from my father, because my mother doesn’t like reading. She said that her eyes are getting tired every time she reads. When she was young, she always asked someone to read her something, but never tried to read it by herself.

Chocolate is something that she really, really likes. Just give her a lot of chocolates, she will be very happy, and eats them all in a blink of an eye. On her birthday, everybody who loves her always give her chocolate. Her children, her daughter in law, her sisters, her nephews and nieces, even her students give her chocolate. Beside chocolate, she also likes eating chicken wings. She said that the most delicious part of a chicken is their wings. This time I agree with her. And because she is busy, sometimes it’s so difficult to talk to her. I suggest her several times to buy a cell phone, to make it easier to contact her. But she doesn’t want to have a cell phone. She said that she doesn’t want to be disturbed by anyone, anywhere.

One thing that I don’t really like about her is that she always forgets to put things back on their place. So, everytime she needs that thing, she has to look for it everywhere. The other thing is, she sometimes spends too much money to buy food. She likes eating snacks between her meal times. She buys snacks or cake not just for herself, but also for the neighbours. She said that our neighbours have to taste the delicious foods that she eats, she wants to share her happiness with them. Well, that’s my mother, always cares about everything, about everybody in the neighbourhood.

She is a busy woman, that’s why she doesn’t have enough time to cook for her family. But she is a good cook, she can make delicious food. And eventhough she is busy, she always has time for me. She taught me how to cook, she listened every problem and helped me find the way out.

My mother is 55 years old now. She’s been married for almost 32 years. She has two children, my little brother and I. And she’s very happy because she’s a grandmother now. My little brother just gave her a beautiful grand daughter. I know that my mother wants me to get married and give her a grandchild, but she never force me, and I am so glad that she understands about me that much.

She felt tired and wanted to retired from her job as soon as possible, but everybody says no, don’t retired so soon. They still need a person like my mother, they still need her to help them doing their job.

Thank you so much Mom, for everything. Thank you for teaching me how to care, how to love, how to be strong, and thank you for being patient and understanding, and for being a lovely mother. I am so proud to have you as my mother. I love you so much.