I’m sorry we never met. Mom tells me you were a great man. Dad and I don’t talk otherwise I might’ve learned that from him. Mom also thinks you made Mama and your boys better people. Is that something a father hopes for?

There is so much we don’t know about you. I know you dropped out of high school to fight Dutch colonization and became a Kolonel in in the Indonesian Army. You made sure your children were formally educated in ways you were not. I know you were the mayor of Makassar for a term. Mom says you made yourself available to the people you governed, that you always listened and cared. I believe in the same things. Listening and caring. Without these, I would only be self-serving. I would be Dad.

In Indonesia after you passed, Dad pedaled me around Makassar on your bicycle, the small one that folds up. He said you used to ride that bicycle to the masjid every week for Salat Jumat. He said you were a good Muslim. Sometimes, I know, he doesn’t tell me the truth; he lies for convenience. I choose to believe he tells the truth about you.

At that time I was 14 and didn’t know how to believe in anything.

I didn’t know what a good Muslim was. I hardly knew what a Muslim was. For as long as I can remember Dad told us we were, but taught us nothing. We were Muslim, we couldn’t eat pork, bismillahi rahmani rahim. That was it. No Prophet Muhammad, PBUH, no five pillars, no shahada, no puasa, no salat.  

Later, after meeting the Mom’s AFS family I learned who good Muslims are, what love and faith looks like in a home. Why didn’t Dad ever teach us? I don’t think he’s capable. He doesn’t really have much patience for us. If he is not amused, he’s not interested. I figure we aren’t very amusing. I want to believe you would have taught us if we were around. You would have encouraged us to engage spirituality beyond dietary restriction. I have your Quran now, the small one you wrote your name in.

You would have been a wonderful grandfather to us. To me.

Love,

E