"You must know that there's nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education."
Dostoevsky's
The Brother Karamazov
My family had planned to not do "mudik" this year, like we always had the last three years after my grandmother, the last grand-generation in my family, passed away. My mother said that it was not necessary to go there since we don't have anyone to visit anymore and also since my two brothers have happily married, and they will do this "mudik" thing to my house to visit my parents on the Ied moment. So she felt that it was better we stayed here, while my mom and dad enjoyed their moments of being grandparents.
But, yeah we did "mudik" anyway, all in a sudden.
On the second morning of Ied, my father suddenly told me that we are going to go. He has booked a train ticket for the departure, then also a plane ticket back to Jakarta all in a sudden. It was such a very good luck on us that we still got tickets this late. So, all in a sudden, I packed my clothes, my stuffs, and all in a sudden, we did "mudik" anyway.
So, by train it was an 12 hours going. We arrived in Madiun (East Java), at 2 o'clock in the morning. Although my grandparent's house is in the middle of the city, the air was very cold that I was shivering all the way from the station to the house. However, besides all of this coldness and shivering things, the city's look at night really impressed me. It was so calm, so quite, and with the traffic light that at that time only showed the color of yellow, the nightlife at this city has been perfectly amazing. I still love those blue and white striped sidewalk (does not like the one in Jakarta, with only black and white stripe), and the big road with an advertisement billboard crossing over the road. I love the town, for probably some reasons that was not make sense at all.
But it is make sense to me now.
It started to make sense to me one night, in a park.
The next night, I was going around the city with my cousins buying some fried rice for the dinner and also kue putu for snacks, then walking around the big park in the very middle of the city that they usually call alun-alun. It was awesomely crowded, with a lot of booms from firecrackers and fireworks everywhere. There were also a lot of kids, and also family playing around. Then I heard this conversation a boy and his father.
Pa, kita pulang besok?
Iya, nak.
Aku gak mau pulang, pa.
Then I realized I used to be that boy, begging and even crying to my parents to stay there longer.
When I was a kid, Ramadhan had been something that I really waited for. There were two main reasons of it. First, because in that month, I got a chance to play more at night after tarawih prayer. Second, because in the end of the month, we will do this "mudik" thing, and had a lot of fun from it. There in the city, I saw the big love of my big family. Every morning, we greeted each other, we had breakfast together, we talked together for hours, we were sleeping in a very limited place because the house, which was not big, was overloaded with the coming of all my big family. That moment was priceless, and I will make sure that I will have that kind of family later on.
So, Dostoevsky and other wise man is right. The reason why a lot have said that childhood memory is the best education is simple: because the childhood memory, whether it is depressing, sad, or beautiful and sacred, it will stay in one's mind and heart for the rest of the life. One of the memory of the childhood for me is on those blue and white striped sidewalks. Now, whenever I go there, walk on those sidewalks, I felt like I'm home, like I used to be here, as the little boy. So in years, people can experience a lot of unpredictable thing, that is probably gonna change them, little or much. Those memories on the childhood is going to stay there, to be a reminder who, where, and with whom they were, and those memory, can also heal them whenever the "real world" hurt.
So, a memory from childhood, is perhaps the best education.