What's in the name

Jogja earthquake teaches me a lesson. It's a simple lesson, simpler than the one learned by the victims of the earthquake. The lesson is about the importance of remembering names and places. Exactly the thing I failed to do before.

It happened like this...
When I learned about the quake (quite late) from the local TV, I went panicky. I tried to call my parents in Jakarta but with no avail. The line seemed jammed. I was not that worried about my parents because they are in Jakarta, but I was worried about my grandparents and my extended family living in Jogja-Prambanan-Klaten. My grandparents live in Jakarta (together with their 10 children, 10 in-laws, 20-something grandchildren), but they have a house and a farm back there in a small village in Klaten. Also, their relatives -my distant cousins, uncles, aunts- live scatteredly in Jogja, Prambanan, and Klaten. When the telephone line didn't seem to work, I was even more worried. I kept thinking about my relatives, and what if my grandparents were in their house in Klaten?! The figure in the news kept raising: from hundreds to thousands...

While waiting for some news from Jakarta, I tried to find some information from some friends. And a very kind friend offered to get me some info about my family (thank you so much Pak!). He then asked me about the names and villages of my relatives. That hit me for more than a minute: I was not sure to give him the names or even the villages for I DON'T REMEMBER THEIR COMPLETE NAMES and the names of their villages! What a fool! So fool!!! Now, how am I supposed to know how they are?!
I am one of those people who call my family by nicknames, and I often don't bother to remember where they work or what their positition (posisition/rank is a very important thing to remember if your family is a group of Army, Navy, Air Force, Police Dept combined together!). I'm also used to calling the parents of my distant cousins as Pakde/Bude+name of the children. I don't even know the full names of most of my cousins! To make it worse in this case, I don't remember the name of my grandparents' village (My mom's and my village! Our hometown!!), neither do I remember the streets or areas where my relatives -Pakde, Bude, Sepupu- live! It's SO DUMB of me!!! What makes this even dumber is my mom always reminds me of this thing, but I just didn't seem to absorb the information. I thought if I knew where it was (because I went there several times), it was enough. And now, I realize, the hard way, it is not enough!
Guys, please don't do what I've done...

news coming later from my mom: Alhamdulillah, my family are fine. Of course houses and buildings are wreck, but it is nothing compared to the fact that they are okay. Alhamdulillah.

**My deep condolences to the victims and their families. May God bless you**