Nasi Goreng Buatan Bapak

I remember the day when I told my parents that I was too tired to cook. It was about 2 months ago, I was really busy doing day to day house works because my mom was sick so I had to take her part.

Growing up, moreover as an only child, I’ve always been spoiled by my parents. I didn’t cook, I didn’t clean, I never really helped my parents in any way.

Until in the beginning of august 2020, when both of my parents fell sick and I had to take care of them and basically everything by myself for the very first time in my 22 years of relatively easy life. I think it’s normal to say that making decisions and signed papers are indeed difficult, but what surprised me the most is the fact that I couldn’t even do the most basic things such as shopping at the local market or paying the internet bills.

I just realized that a household (my household, to say the least) is solely ran by my dad and my mom. Once one of them can’t manage it, the entire household will fall apart.

And all this time my only role there has always been just as a free rider. So when my parents got sick and I had to take their part in “keeping the household strong”, I was in utter despair trying to figure out things and dealing with my own emotions.

Luckily my dad recovered quickly, so we could start dividing tasks on house chores. I would cook, sweep, mop the floor, buy groceries and meds, also pay the bills. My dad would take care of washing the clothes and do mechanical things.

All this time we rarely had nice and warm deep conversations, just insignificant small talks when we stumbled upon each other in the dining room. Even so, I always knew that he paid attention to every detail of my life even though he didn’t communicate much about it to me, no matter how much he wanted to.

So when we started spending more time together doing chores and whatnot, we started talking more and tried to understand each other’s perspective. Even if it was difficult, but I guess we started opening up and allowed ourselves to be vulnerable to each other.

I realized that even if he’s my dad, he’s human too. He isn’t always right and he can’t protect me forever. This goes to me too, as their daughter maybe this is the time for me to grow as an adult and to stop hiding behind my parent’s back all the time.

All of those roller coaster of emotions and workloads of house chores started taking a toll on my energy, so I finally told my parents that I wanted to take a break from cooking that day.

My dad decided to cook for dinner. He made nasi goreng, with the guidance of my mom’s recipe. Even if he was a bit confused and hurried most of the time during cooking, the nasi goreng turned out to be very good. It was the best meal I ate during that hard time.

I asked my mom about the recipe and wrote it on my notes. Now that my parents are fully recovered and I’m already back in my dorm, the nasi goreng my dad cooked for me becomes my go to when I want to eat something good and easy to make.

The nasi goreng that I cook will never be as good as my dad’s, but it will always remind me of our journey and growth as a family.

Thus for now, it is enough.