The Visitation

The visitation (Tuesday, July 10)

I don’t think we ever met Mrs. Panjaitan though we knew she was sick with cancer. Her children greet us every morning, in English, and the oldest is learning a few phrases beyond “hello” and “goodbye”. Until now I never put the two together, but often times this year during our visit, I will hear a child crying from the direction of their house. Now perhaps we know it wasn’t a child throwing serial tantrums but a child suffering the last days of the mother.

We didn’t recognize the first sign this afternoon that Mrs. Panjaitan had died. Our next door neighbor Putra, who helps by replacing light bulbs, fuel containers, etc., stuck his head in through the front door (which he never does) and turned on our porch light. He has asked that we keep the light on at night, which we do, but not at 5 in the afternoon, with the sun shining brightly outside. I assumed that there were other lights around the building hooked into the same circuit that he was checking. We are used to working from a position of not understanding what is going on, so we shrugged it off.

Several of the condolence signs for the Panjaitan family.

A few minutes later Lolo Siahan, the oldest son of another neighbor who lives in the same row of houses as the Panjaitans, took a break from an afternoon project to tell us that Mrs. Panjaitan had just died. We talked with him at length about the visitation and burial customs here. He related the story of his grandmother dying of cancer and how terrible it was.

Before long a bechat (motorcycle with sidecar—in this case a side cargo area) zoomed up, heavily laden with dozens of tikars, the mats which are used by Indonesian families to provide seating for many guests in their homes. Families also use these for sleeping and for eating, assuming they want to do all this on the tile floor, just with the thin tikar for cushion.

After the bechat departed, the many cars along that part of the driveway were moved out, and I assumed they were making room some type of funeral home vehicle or some official car connected with the death. But I was wrong, once again. A big delivery truck pulled up and men unloaded scaffolding, erecting it in front of the home. Then with much noise they put metal panels on top of the scaffolding, and in a matter of minutes a covered pavilion was standing in front of the house. Our friends explained to me this was to protect the many guests who would come. With the heavy rains here recently this protection is important. Of course when the rain stops and the sun comes out then the shade will also be welcome.

This is the view of the Panjaitan home from our front porch. Inside the open window just above the plastic chair is the visitation room. Condolence boards are oriented toward the house on the easels.

We decided to go and visit the family that evening, and also decided we would have a friend from here go with us, to make sure we showed proper respect for the customs and traditions. It was decided to go over at 8, after a quick run to the Ramyana and dinner at home. (Jose)pina agreed to go with us, and she arrived promptly at 8 at our home. You know that something big is happening when Indonesians are prompt. She had Esra with her, and before we left the home Jacob and Nancy joined with them in rehearsing a song that Jacob decided would be appropriate for the visitation “Come Now Fount of Every Blessing”. We started the short walk to our neighbor’s home and I saw that Dean Tagor was there, having left for Medan early in the morning and now returned. He immediately took control and told us what we would do. He briefly outlined the procedure, that we would enter the home, express our condolences to the family members, then have a brief ceremony.

After removing our shoes and picking our way through a maze of shoes, we entered the home and stepped directly into the visitation. The room was lined wall to wall with the tikars. Many women quietly sat along the walls of the room, leaving no gaps for us to tuck ourselves into. A simple bed standing a foot or so from the floor projected out from the wall to our right. The grieving husband, shoulders covered with a dark colored shawl or uhlos, sat on the left side of the head of the bed, with the mother of Mrs. Panjaitan on the right side. Mrs. Panjaitan was in repose on the bed. She was dressed in a stunningly beautiful orange cabia, the Batak formal dress. Given that she had suffered for three years from cancer, we were apprehensive to look at her. But she was beautiful, already in heaven, but still beautiful on earth. Her face was very peaceful. Her body was covered head to toes with a very thin, transparent veil that included a pattern of shimmering gold and silver thread around the edges. This veil seemed to serve two purposes: to soften the image of the deceased, and also to act as a shield to keep flies off the body. Her feet were tied together with a simple loop of silk ribbon around her big toes.

It truly was difficult to manage emotions and to absorb and process all we were experiencing. We shook hands with the husband and the mother, and other family members. I was careful not to trip over the foot of the bed. The young daughters were in and out, though the oldest (Olivia, who we think is around 7 years old) ended up snuggled up with her dad. Then Dean Tagor said some introductory words, I gave a prayer, the Nancy/Jacob/Esra/Pina quartet sang “Font of Every Blessing”, a representative of the church offered thanks from the family, and Nancy closed with a prayer. I’m sure I’ve left something out but that is the high level outline.

Dean Tagor explained that it is customary for women and children to remain in the room for some time while men gather outside (I bet to smoke, as usual!) I went with Dean Tagor but remained within hearing distance, and when I heard that Nancy and Jacob had completed Amazing Grace and were singing Beautiful Savior, I excused myself from the Dean and returned to the room. With that hymn concluded we all exited the room together and I wondered why I wasn’t smart enough to wear my slip on shoes.

We cannot imagine the pain and suffering that family has gone through during the last three years. We can relate in a way this to our experience with Kesha. The positive aspect here is the strong family and extended family structure, a core element of Batak culture. There is no question that the beautiful Panjaitan children will be loved and cared for as they grow up. They have a great deal of energy and love life. We pray for Mr. Panjaitan and his painful loss.

We are told the tradition is for friends and family to accompany the departed one until the burial, which is set for Thursday. Evidently there will be some type of ceremony in and outside the home at 10 on Thursday, and then the family will transport the body back to the family village of the Panjaitans, very close to Lake Toba, where she will be buried. While we grieve for Mrs. Panjaitan we look forward to being a part of this community as we support the family in these difficult days.

Wednesday, July 11

With the “watch” by friends and family continuing right outside our window until late in the night, it was difficult for a light sleeper to get much rest. It wasn’t that the noises were that loud, but it is hard to fall asleep when you’ve got people talking less than twenty feet from your (always) open bedroom window. I tried to sleep on our couch (the one that was returned to our house on Monday after doing duty at the International Seminar) and actually did fall asleep several times. But it’s better suited for an afternoon nap than a late night snooze. When I woke up at 1:30 I discovered that all was quiet at the neighbors and climbed in bed for the night.

Today they have erected a second covered pavilion and brought in many plastic chairs, maybe 60 or 70. I spoke with Pastor Turnip, who lives next to the Panjaitan family, and he explained there would be a service on Thursday at 12 noon. But there will be a Batak cultural event at 10, and a worship service beginning at 8. So I’m getting the idea that Thursday morning there will be constant activity. He pointed out that I can bring a video camera. The sign boards began arriving in the morning and before the afternoon there were seven or eight lining the driveway and the main campus road. I usually call these congratulatory boards, since they are usually for a store opening, wedding or graduation. I guess these are condolence boards. The letters are created from either in flowers or strips of colored plastic. From the many boards I will say that the Panjaitan family has many people grieving with them.

I went to talk to Mr. Siahan to gain more understanding of the Batak customs and also to determine as neighbors what obligation we had for attendance / participation in the coming events. He explained that by participating in the visitation the night before that we had fulfilled any obligation for showing respect and concern for the family. But if we chose to sit outside the home tonight and just talk with others and drink some of the tea or coffee, that that would also be a good thing to do. He shared many other things about the Batak customs, which are quite complex for an informal American.

In the mid-afternoon Jacob and I went off campus in search of an active Internet provider (the on-campus wi-fi was off for the first time we can remember this trip…I asked in the Dean’s office about it, they called Medan, the BIG campus, and I suppose the source of the Internet T-1 line, and they said it was “broken”). So we marched across the street and chose a new internet café, different from the one we used last year in that it offered actual chairs to sit in while you are keying things into the nastiest keyboard imaginable (OK, on a bad day in D215…my room at HVA…the keyboards may be just as bad). There was a nice breeze blowing and it was not hot (I almost said cool…not quite!) as we sat there and checked out Facebook, the blog, the Comcast email account that gets 100 junk emails for every good ones, CNN and of course the News Sentinel. Al this for just 20 cents per hour per computer, a bargain that ranks up there with the micro-bus rides.

We returned home to find a solid stream of well-dressed people leaving our neighborhood. Nancy explained that there was a sort of worship service held outside the Panjaitan family home, a service that had just concluded. In the evening another service began around 8 and we’re not certain how late it lasted, because it segued at some point into hymn singing and keyboard playing. The volume did not change, it was deafeningly loud outside our home and also inside. Since we have open windows facing the Panjaitans, the sound just blasted right in. I can testify that the heavily amplified singing was still going on at 1 am. Thank goodness that by 2 am the musical talent must have run out of steam and gone home.