Since the death of my grandfather from my mother’s side, my grandmother stays in our home. My grandmother has the beautiful face, which even the lines on her face cannot erase. She has the smiling eyes, which makes her looks lovely even when she gets sad. Her fairly-white-hair makes her looks even more graceful as she gets older. She might not have a pointed nose like any grandmother in fairytales, but her flat nose makes her looks beautiful in her own unique way.

My grandmother is a traditionalist. Her hair is relatively short and slight. It seems that her age has stopped her hair from growing any longer. However, she always makes her best effort to tie it up traditionally into a bun. One day, she lost her hair pinch. She asked me and my brother whether we saw it or not. None of us knew where her hair pinch was, so I offered her to use my hair rubber and tie up her hair into a pony tail like mine. Although it was more practical, she refused it. She said it was awkward.  Therefore, she had to work hard to make a hair bun by using a twig.

Down from her hair, my grandmother’s every day dresses is also pretty unusual for most women of these days. She usually dresses in kebaya, the Javanese traditional outfit. It is much more complicated compared to women’s regular blouse. Its maker has made it by paying so much attention to details. It is designed in a way that could emphasize woman’s body shape. It is tight around the belly part but broader around the hip. It is such a graceful outfit with its long-sleeves and a sharp-front-end. Not to mention the lace made at its every single fringe. Not only it has the unusual design, it also makes dressing becomes such a hard work. My grandmother has to wrap a special cloth around her belly several times before she put on her kebaya. I guess it is a traditional way to deal with the flabby belly since fitness centre has not become so popular back there in the past. If I had to wear it, I guess it would have made me running out of breath as if I had asthma. Matched with the kebaya, my grandmother wears a long-tight-dress with traditional batik pattern. It is definitely not a suitable dress for a marathon because it really restricts the movement of the feet. It is pretty amazing to find that my grandmother has never complained about it. She still walks gracefully and comfortably with it. It seems that she really enjoys wearing her kebaya as much as I enjoy wearing my jeans and T-shirt. Despite of its unusual design and impracticality, it makes my grandmother looks graceful even in her old age.

My grandmother is also such a good cook. She can turn simple and regular ingredients into a special cuisine. Anything she cooks would always taste good. I guess the key of her secret recipe is in the food seasoning. The flavor of her cooking is always good for the tongue. It is never bland. She can make all ingredients she uses in the right composition that they can blend perfectly and create such a delicious taste. However, when I tried to ask her how her cooking could always taste good, she said that she does not know it either. I guess being a good cook is already in her blood. If it is true then it would definitely become such great tidings for me, who would probably inherit her talent since grandmother and granddaughter are still much related in blood.

My grandmother’s traditional value is not only reflected by the way she looks or by her astonishing talent at cooking. It can also be seen from her every day attitudes. When she was still staying with my grandfather at their house, my grandmother had always made a glass of dark coffee to be put in the dining table everyday. Once when I was very little, I innocently asked her why there had not been anybody who took it for drink after such a long time. She told me that it was because the coffee was not made for somebody. It was made for the ancestors who might want to visit their house. She believed that it was a sort of way to welcome the ancestors. She does not do that ritual any longer in our home. However, on some special days she would put some foods on our dining table, which I and my brothers would not dare to touch.

People might see my grandmother as an eccentric by the way she looks or behave. I, myself, still get surprised sometimes by what she does. However, eccentricity would not make her become less in my eyes. She would always be my beloved grandmother and the only one of her kind.