Counting Blessings

I was surprised first, to get this question, "You haven't posted anything on your blog, why?" said someone. Happy? Of course, finally I found out that this blog still got its readers, thanks. And it hits me from the cloud nine, I meant like “how far you’ve been gone, Nin? How long was that? You did really badly on your time management, really. Whatever happened to ‘just write, don’t think’?” and any other questions that popped out of my mind.

But I’m back. Since this is the first Ramadhan. I would like to say my sorry to you all, if I did bad, if my words fail me and hurt you, if my jokes were too suck you wanted punch me on the face, forgive me. Hope that we could make it through to the last day of Ramadhan and of course make the best of us, and after all, be better ones.

“You want to stay creative? Try to count your blessings.”

That’s the first line I read first time I woke up today before sahoor, even I know I won’t make my first day of fasting in Ramadhan, I know period’s suck. So I try to please myself on trying to give “something” with writing, since it used to be my “thing” before I drown in the ocean of deadlines and assignments.

 

The more we count our blessings, the more we feel nothing

Counting blessing? Can we? It’s not like we were counting sheep that will lead us to our deepest sleep, right? Or it is? I’m going to answer it later. First thing first, I got one thing in my mind that you might want to know.

The beginning of everything is when I got this special assignment from my lecturer, to make a documentary. Shortly, my team took Griya PMI Solo which is a house of people with mental disorder, schizophrenia, etc; as its subject for our documentary, in the other words, we would like to visualize and tell the world that these people deserve to be treated without discrimination, that they’re the same as us who sometimes proudly call their selves “normal” people, that they deserve to be humanized.

Somehow, lately this is not only about my assignment anymore, it becomes more emotional than I thought before, it touched my heart and pushed my mind to think, “how far you’ve been doing to yourself, to people surround you?” I feel none. I imagined how good these people once like, not because now they become bad, they still are, just in the way they did not realize. I was going to the psychiatrist; well she said that they’re the strongest in their weakness. When in time there were so many people who were cursing life, even God because of the life’s test that they got, and deciding suicide as their best way to escape, when it’s definitely not. These people with mental disorder stay strong.

First time I see them, before I really interacted with them, I would ask, “What’s wrong with them? They seem.... normal.” Because they are, they could interact, some of them could do what we could do like cooking, washing, even I see some of the male patient could sneak out to buy ice tea, really, buy. And then I asked what’s wrong with the society? Even maybe, they got feeling that is stronger than our heart can feel. They need love, appreciation, and cares as much as we need it, I feel sick of seeing those with mental disorder on the road, seperate by the society, treated like they’re invisible, ignored like they’re virus, when maybe all they need is a friend to share. Griya PMI Solo is not only a house for people with mental disorder or schizophrenia; it’s also a house of love I think. Because, I don’t know. I see sincerity in the way the staffs there, taking care each people; feed them, play with them, even showering them. They give them the love they lost.

Until one day, when I was taking video of them, it’s already Maghrib. And all the people were going to the hall, including the patients. When we were busy taking video, when one of them asked,

“Aren’t you praying?”

“Yeah we want to, we would put this first. Are you?”

“No, I’m in my period. We can’t”

And there I feel speechless. I feel the weight of the world just fell off my head. Even she could remind me not to delay my praying tim. Just before that, I couldn’t stand it; my tears streamed down my face when I heard one of the male patient take the microphone for Adzan. And I heard nothing from the other patient, they listened to it. It was soothing. And then again I asked, “When we keep delaying our praying time, which’s actually unconscious? Us? Or them that we usually called as people with mental disorder?”

The next day, I slept over there with my team to make an early shooting, and also to stay awake all over the night to begin the editing process –even I was the one who could not resist, and slept like I’ve done nothing wrong. The next morning, when we help the staffs to give them morning tea I see one patient−complete with the gloves on her hands, was taking care the old woman, showering her, changing her clothes, patiently and also with love, like all the staffs give it to her. I think of the love cycle that exists here in Griya PMI Solo. The love they lost, now they got it from the staffs, and then they could continue to give the love they got without diminished the feeling. It’s beautiful. A kind of perfect in all imperfections. Such as bless.

And can we count the blessings? Well, even the number of stars in the million galaxies could never ever count God’s blessings. And maybe it would take a lifetime, from the moment we were born, to the moment that we were old and grey, and we are not able to breathe anymore, yet we still lack of time of counting blessings. No one ever could, because we would be running out of number.

Because I knew I would run out of number, I would love to share what I learned from there like how we should appreciate the life we got, and how we supposed to not too easy to give in. They teach me, that God’s test is only for those that God loves, that God think they’re strong enough to receive the test. They remind me a lot about the concept of humanize the human, how far I’ve been doing? Have I appreciate people even myself? Have you?

Have a blissful Ramadhan!

Don’t count your blessing, but

Know it, feel it, live it, repeat.