Mind & Spirit
Mind & Spirit
For My Children
By Moze Simanjuntak
Could you imagine how it would feel to be a part of one of the richest families in an entire province, then falling to being one of the poorest? I could not possibly imagine what it must have felt to be my grandmother when her life fell apart.
My dad enjoys recounting his mother’ s story. My grandfather was a high ranking police officer in Medan. However, he didn ' t have qualities that one would expect from a successful person as he. He spent a great deal of time drinking, gambling, and he regularly beat my father and my uncles. My grandmother would stand up for her children and take the brunt of my grandfather’ s fury nearly every night of her marriage.
Despite the abuse, grandma did not get a divorce. She knew that her children needed a father, so she sacrificed her own welfare for the sake of her children. Year after year, she put up with her drunk husband. Although they were well off financially, she saved money and invested in businesses for the future of her children. My grandfather continued to make my
Grandfather
Grandmother grandmother ' s life miserable for twenty years.
One day in 1987, the police department discovered that my grandfather used government money to gamble. My grandmother used up all her savings, investments and gold to keep her husband away from prison. The consequences of drinking and smoking for years had finally caught up with my grandpa; he became constantly ill. One can only imagine of the amount of pressure on my grandma- one woman who needed to take care of seven children and a sickly husband.
Under these dreadful circumstances, most people would have crumpled under the pressure, but not my grandmother. She refused to give up. She travelled across the city on foot selling sweets, snacks, traditional food, shoes, clothes, and books door-todoor. With her efforts, intelligence and remarkable resilience, she kept the entire family alive and her children educated for years. If there was any word that could even remotely describe Nurmala Simorangkir’ s incredible love for her family, it was perseverance.
During the last years of their lives, my grandparents gave their lives to Jesus. With their repentance, the whole family was transformed for good. My grandfather sacrificed his old motorcycle, one of the few precious things he had left, so my dad could study in Java. It showed how much a person can be transformed by God; from being an abusive drunkard my grandfather became a dedicated dad. Sadly, he did not live to see how his sacrifice helped my father succeed. He died in 1988 after having been sick for many years. My grandmother died a week after, at 57, a day after my father graduated.
My dad mentioned that his mother’ s greatest legacy was how she set incredible examples for her children to follow. He derived his spirit, integrity, faith, character, and strength from his mom years after she had passed away.
Remember all the hardships your parents went through so you can have good education in MICS! Don’ t let their sacrifices go to waste. Take the opportunities you have, opportunities that others would kill to get, live your life for God and make your parents proud!
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