Silence Like Cancer Grows
Picture by the author, Jakarta, 2020. "Silence like cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach to you But my words, like silent raindrops, fell and echoed in the wells of silence..." "Mom was diagnosed with cancer." I was listening to Simon and Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence on repeat. I remember the word 'cancer' and 'silence'. Two words. It illustrates the speed of light growing silence and gives a visual image of swelling and malignant or harmful silence. Simon wrote it, in a sense, to depict how cold and lonely this world is for us to reach out fearlessly. The multitudes of isolation have proven unseen and unnoticed, killing us like cancer. "Mom was diagnosed with cancer." That particular morning, I was with her in the doctor's room at the Gatot Soebroto Army Hospital. The doctor's room is about 3x3 meters. The subspecialist doctor, lightheartedly and without a trace of empathy, start
