How a big heart can make the weak triumph over the hard life…

June 15, 2008, I was in a hurry to catch a train which served the passage from Central Java to Jakarta, Indonesia. It was at 6 in the evening when I reached the railway station. There was still two extra hours before the train left, but apparently there was not any seat left for me that night. I would have to attend a short-semester class right in the next morning that I had no other choices but to take a ticket for no seat. I took out a sheet of Rp 100.000,- from my purse with a sigh and gave it to the teller whose face expressed sympathy for me.

I felt pity for myself too. Many people say that life isn’t so kind in a place like that. To travel alone in such distant journey was scary enough, yet I still had to go through that in a crowded train which with the ticket I got could only give me little space to stand or to sit on the newspaper mat I could make for myself on the train’s floor. To have such travel for seven or eight hours would be so unbearable, yet I could meet with such a big-hearted woman who chose to pass a free seat to give to me.

After waited for about one and a half hour, I decided to enter any of the train wagons. Any train wagon would be fine for a no seat-passenger like me, but I still tried to find the best spot I could possibly find though. My eyes kept searching for that spot while I kept on walking from one wagon to another. I stopped when I reached the fifth wagon where I met a mother with a two-year-old baby with some space in front of their seat. I tried to ask permission from that woman with the most polite intonation I could. “Excuse me, Ma’am, I could not get any seat since I’m running out of the regular train ticket and now I’m looking for some free space for myself. So…is it okay if I am here?”

Still busy of caressing her baby, she replied. “Sure. I actually cannot get any seat either, so we can share this space. Sure, you may!”

I was quite surprised. On one side I felt sorry for her when I knew that the seat was not belong to her while she was with a baby, but on the other side I felt a bit lighter to meet a fellow sufferer who was willing to share with me. We sat on the free seats behind us meanwhile the owners had not come, but soon as a well-dressed woman came and approached us, we knew if it was the time for us to leave those seats immediately.

The mother then asked permission from that lady to use the free space in front of her seat, but instead of saying a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ that good-looking lady just threw a brief smile which for me it even looked more closely to a smirk rather than a smile. It was looked as if that woman looked down on the mother, which probably happened because of the mother’s poor appearance. We still took that lady’s expression as a ‘Yes’ answer though.

I bought a newspaper as a mat for us to seat on that little space we got and then we had some conversation. “Where do you want to go, Ma’am?” I asked.

“To Senen Market…” she replied.

“Do you often go there?”

“Yes, I use to go there and back here regularly and I’m in a hurry tonight since I have to arrive there tomorrow, early in the morning. Thus, I have no choice but to take ticket for no seat.”

Senen Market is quite a well-known place in Jakarta for selling many kinds of second-hand goods from electronics to clothes and shoes. I assumed if that mother used to go there to pick up some goods to sell in her hometown.

When the train officer came to check our tickets and saw that there was still one empty seat, then he told us that one of us may sit there as long as no other people remarked that as his or her seat. Having been taught by my mother to favor the needy and realizing that she had to take care of her baby too, I tried to press my own ego. I offered than woman to take the seat.

“You can sit there, Ma’am.”

“No. You…sit there!”

“No, Ma’am. Thanks! But you’re with a baby, so it’s better for you to sit there.”

“Aah…it’s alright. I feel better to stay here. Really!” she said.

Deep down inside, I knew that the soft seat must be better than the hard train floor she chose, but since she kept refusing, so I decided to take the seat anyway.

From my seat, I could have a better view for it was a higher position then the previous one, on the floor. Therefore, I could see the mother and her baby more clearly. She was wearing a set of long-sleeves shirt and pants with brown and white square motif which seemed dusty. Even the white color from her shirt had turned to be nearly as brown as the original brown which colored her shirt. It was quite different to her baby’s dress, a set of nice pink clothes with a pair of cute red socks on her tiny feet. That showed me the mother’s sacrifice to always give her child the best she could give, even better than what she gave to herself.

That reminded me of her sacrifice for me too, how she passed the free seat that I could sit comfortably. Other people might see her as low class for sitting on the train’s floor, but from the eyes of humanity she even had the higher level than others who got seats. When I took the seat, I also took other’s chance to get a seat, but when that mother passed the seat, she gave another people chance to have a comfortable seat.

Along the travel, she never complained but thanked God instead. Funnily, her baby seemed to have the similar attitude with her mother. The baby did not cry a lot like most babies I knew, but slept soundly like an angel baby. It seemed that the train ground gave the baby wide enough space to have a comfortable sleep. That really amazed me of how people who seemed to be the weak could be so strong because of their big heart, which enabled them to triumph over the hard life.