I was cleaning through the cupboards at Kayun today and came across your shoes. It got me thinking about how I was told that you love to go shopping. Oh if only I had known you secretly love shopping malls, there would have been many a joke at your expense about that. I also found a jar of black pepper in a box full of kids stationary and Tabi told me it was yours. I like to think that you were using pepper spray to control the rowdy kids in your class. However, having observed your class, I’m very confident that the loudest and bounciest person in the class was you. That was one of my favourite observations, we spent half of the class chatting to me and playing with your students, whilst Antonio went round painting the girls’ nails with felt tip pens.
Your giant surfboard is keeping me company on a Saturday and Sunday night watching the football. I'll find a Chelsea shirt big enough to fit on it, although it doesn't have the stories and the plans that you used to tell me about sat on my mattress on the floor. It was hard work to keep up with your ever changing plans for which country to tick off next, even though all roads led to South America. That's what makes this seem so unfair, you made more plans about what to do next than lesson plans, you grabbed life and shook every last experience out of it.
I remember on the 20th December watching the football in my house, Chelsea vs West Ham 1-1. Lampard took the penalty 3 times and scored on each attempt even though the first 2 attempts were ruled illegal by the referee. I guess that’s what happens when Chelsea play with a 12th man looking after them. It also reminds me of the stories you told about your life, you never mentioned people by name; just my mate who is a dreadlocked West Ham supporter. That was my favourite description of your friends. Make sure your boys win the league this season. I can’t handle the smugness of the Man United supporters in the office gloating at another league title.
My Small Stars class, that you covered, still remembers you in their own little way. Freya, Yudhis and Eisen named their teddy bear toys after you last week. So you’re now a Zebra, an Elephant and a Tyrannosaurus in their imaginary safari park. They were the first class I taught after the 13th December and I like it that you made such an impact on them in your short time teaching them, that they still remember you. You live on in all us.
I terribly miss having you around Kayun. I miss my morning sports round up, I miss the hungover Saturday Pisa order, I miss the maid stories, the house stories, the debates about pointless facts, the annoyances of living in Indonesia, I miss your untucked shirts with a tie, top button undone of course, I miss the banter, I miss your common sense, I miss your selflessness, I miss your getting on with the job spirit, I miss how you thought about other people first, I miss your straight forwardness about the other teachers’ moans and gripes, I miss your thank you-s, I miss your gratitude and concern about a class being cancelled, and most of all I miss you. I walk on average a marathon a day in that place, from a problem, to a question, to a class, to a cigarette, but like Tabi said she didn’t always hear the conversation, the joke, the debate, the piss taking, but we always heard your booming laugh and that gave me my sparkle for the day.
I was dreading your leaving day at Kayun, remember how I joked that I would sneakily get you to sign another contract and chain you to your desk for life? Had you left at the end of your contract, I would have lost much more than a teacher, a good teacher, I would have lost my companion. I know it was a short time. However, in this line of work you get used to people coming and going, it makes it hard to want to get to know people, knowing that in a year they maybe gone, off to their next exotic port of call. I am so grateful Kabelvision didn’t renew the rights to the Premier League and that I installed Indovision which did have the TV rights, because it was at the point I really got to know you. You were always David, whether at work or not. However, being able to spend time with you at the weekend made my Saturday and Sunday and opened me up to you. Football and life may have filled up many of our conversations, but it was the stuff we didn’t talk about, how we look after people, putting others first, that connected us. Despite the sadness, despite the pain, despite the hurt, despite the wishes, despite the tears I will forever appreciate that I was lucky enough to have met you. You live on in me, by the hope that you have given me from meeting someone who thinks the same way as me.
However, I would gladly swap all of this if I could skip December 13th 2009, but I can’t. At your ceremony in Adi Jasa, I said the we must take something positive out of all this sadness because that’s what you would want, so I take my luck of meeting you, of talking to your Mum, of giving Lusi a helping hand and personally of what you showed me. It gave me, gives me and will give me the sparkle I need to do some good with my life.
There’s a month to go until Posh vs the Magpies, I’ll be watching or more likely reading on BBC text commentary, I hope you will be too and don’t worry I won’t make the dodgy nachos like the last time. Hati-hati Jules xx
Jules Keith
5th March 2010