The empty space

The scene was impressive: physically challenged, wheelchair-bound residents found their mobility in the able-bodied ones, who despite being mentally challenged could push them around. In the garden, the older ones poked at the soil in the pots to plant their seeds and tilted their bottles to water their plants - despite their twisted, frail hands - while the younger ones looked on to learn.

Then, out she came from the darkness of the corridor, with a crooked smile and a clumsy walk. She shook our hands as if we'd been friends for ages, said a few things we couldn't comprehend, pointed outside to tell us her friends were returning from work - smiling always.

We excused ourselves to take a tour around the home on our own, and she walked with us, eager to be the one acquainting us with the place she had known for so long. I've always admired their innocent friendliness. At the corridor, we passed by a board of photographs; each picture had a name below it.

There, she pointed to an empty space in the middle of a sea of smiling faces, saying something indistinct we couldn't understand, "Kawan…". Pressing her finger against that empty blue space where a photo once was, she repeated herself, but this time, gesturing with her right hand. She was trying to say something important.

"Kawan"

"Kawan kamu?"

"Ya"

"No more?"

"Ya"

And then I understood. "Your friend, no more?"

She nodded, still smiling her unassuming, crooked smile. But this time, her face betrayed an ineffable sadness. In her childlikeness, she had wanted to show us a part of her little world - the home - but first she wanted us to know her friend: a faceless person whose story we would never know about, yet was so important to her in life, and now in death. That empty space was not empty for it meant something dear to her. 

That day, I saw more humanity in a place than I've ever seen in most places.