Although Anita is the least wounded among the children, her mom told me that her daughter “knew that her pain was caused by the bombing, and was afraid to see bearded men for a period of time.” She also used to run away whenever her father started the motorbike engine.
When asked about the trials, Anita’s mother said her husband cried when he saw the master perpetrator in court. He felt rage. Yet, “To punish [him] or not is up to the government. It won’t change what has already happened. It cannot be undone. It’s, however, up to us to forgive,” she said.
“At first, it was hard to forgive, but now even the faces of the perpetrators have become blurry to me,” she added.
When a similar suicide bombing attack took place in Surabaya last year, claiming dozens of lives, Anita’s mom was shocked. She cried, wondering how something like this could happen again. Alvaro’s mom felt the same. Anything similar would trigger their concerns and fear.
But there is also hope for these resilient families.
Intan’s mother is pregnant with her third child. “The sorrow of losing Intan is getting lighter now; life must go on,” said her mom while rocking Intan’s sister Siranya to sleep.
“It is useless to be angry at God— everything that happened to us is a blessing. It helped us to grow closer to God,” Intan’s father added.
When asked what he aspires to be in the future, little Alvaro said without hesitation, “I want to be a surgeon, so I can heal somebody.”
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