This is a little story about my room and the house I’m living in.

My father was an architect, and even though he worked more as a photographer than an architect, the house I live in was still designed by him. He also loved wood, so all the windows, doors and even furniture inside this house were made by him.

When he died, the house he left became a burden. Every corner, every frame, had his essence in it. Everything was him. And for the longest of times, with reasons of having to study abroad or work somewhere, I was able to avoid having to live in the house that my father built.

But life returned.

And I had to face his memory by living in our home, in the room that I grew up in: a house with so much fond memories.

Everything was just like when he was still alive. My room was the same room that he used to enter in the morning to wake me up with loud Beatles music, while dancing like  only my father could. It’s still the same bed he used to sneak into at night, to tell me how much he loves me and how much I mean for him.  It’s still the same living room he used to sit in, think in, talk in, breath in, being alive.

A return home made me have to face the grief I avoided for so long.

But it was time to let go, because the dead are dead and we who remain living must live.

So I decided to start with my room.

I had to let go of the furniture he built for me: my studying table, my cabinets, everything had to go. So I contacted an interior designer, who had become a friend, Ratih, who believes of the ability of design to help the healing process of a person, to help me figure out how I could let go and start over.

She came up with a design that fits in all that I need, and that Could incorporate the woods my father left behind, the things he had not yet finished. And we found a contractor that was flexible enough to work with us.

It took a long time, but my room is starting to take shape. To reflect the person I am now, the person I want to be. It didn’t happen overnight, it was a long process, and when things finally took shape, I almost didn’t realize it anyway.

My normal had now shifted. My normal is now a room I built, a room for me, a room grounded in the love my father left behind.

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H O M E

We built a home for the family

We expanded it as the family grew

Then the children left

Leaving us empty rooms

With so much fond memories

Bandung, April 2010

That was a poem my father wrote the year he died, it also happened to be the year I left for Japan, the year that propelled my adult self into becoming who I am today: a daughter he never had the chance to meet in person.

I am inviting you into a world filled with the love my father left me. A world I’ve been cradled in since birth. A world that has survived his death.

We do not die, we survive in the deeds of today, in the seeds of kindness we sow, in the beauty we make with our bare hands.