When I go to funerals, I always hear how people talk about ikhlas. “Semoga keluarga yang ditinggal ikhlas, ya.” And every time, I only nod and smile while feeling nothing at all.
I always wonder what it actually means to be ikhlas when losing someone so close to our heart. Does it mean that one day we could breathe without holding our tears back for we cannot remember what they smell like? Or does it mean that our hearts will no longer ache when we cannot recall their voice?
Back then, ikhlas felt like something I needed to achieve as soon as I could. It’s like I’m in a race where getting to the finish line means I can have my life back. The life where I smile freely and not befriended with grief. But soon I understood, my grief has no place to go except to my own flesh.
It runs deep in my blood to a point where I can see it with my bare eyes. It seeps deep in my soul, to a point where I can feel it in my psyche. It sits still in my lungs to a point where I can collect it in my breath. And without me realizing, this grief had eaten me whole and raw till all left in my being is my cracking bone.
And still, I have no clue what the people truly meant when they talked about ikhlas. If ikhlas means that I finally can breathe without feeling guilt that I can no longer share the same air with the one I loved, then I’m afraid that I’ll never be ikhlas when losing someone.
This topic is something that I always wanted to write but never had the courage to do. Because ikhlas for me are still some kind of idea that I cannot wrap my head around yet. I mean, how can we be fine when we forget the sound of someone who loved us as loudly as a storm?
I’m still searching for the meaning of ikhlas when losing someone. Because I don’t think my lungs will stop screaming when the one I love loses breath to this earth. I don’t think my core will stop throbbing when I’m reminded that we don’t even share the same air anymore.
I’ve read too many articles and essays about losing and how grief grows alongside our lives, yet I still couldn’t stomach how this grief will always sit beside me. Because for me, this thing called grief is not some willy-nilly emotion I can suppress and act like it’s nothing. Because this grief is so damn infuriating and makes me lose my ability to breathe and live properly all the time. This grief consumes me and mumbles things I don’t want to know. It devours me, raves me, absorbs me till I am no longer human.
But I’m no stranger with them. I knew this grief before I even knew how to write things inside my head. I know this grief since I still believe that someday I’ll start ikhlas when thinking about the one that got away from this life. I know this grief, yet on a random Sunday I still found myself carving your name then engraving it to my pains.
Because after befriending grief for this long, I now hold the knowledge that grief is a love in disguise. I grieved this much and held it this tight because where else my love would go if not to your soul? Even when you’re not here to hear me inciting poems by your name, I can guarantee that you’ll still be my muse forevermore.
Last, I read somewhere that there are many things human can own and possess, but you cannot own the next breath—and indeed, we can’t. I still have no clue what ikhlas is about or when this grief will stop consuming me whole. But at least I know what we can do is love as loudly as we can so the world knows where our heart belongs to, what we need is to love as loudly as the storm so the shore knows that our heart will forever belong to whom. Because honestly, why would I cry this much if my love for you is not as endless as the oceans?
Ditulis oleh Farras Nailatusy Khairin Nisa
Diedit oleh Diandra Wafiyatunnisa
Didesain oleh Fahira Khairunisa
