Cyrus's father, mother, and sister.

Cyrus passed away of a lung illness on Thursday, the 28th of January, 1999 and was laid to rest at Taman Makam Jeruk Purut, Kemang, Jakarta, on Friday, the 29th of January, 1999 at the age of 25 years old.

God said: “I'll lend you my Child ... ” I'll lend you for a little time a child of mine, He said, For you to love the while he lives ... and mourn for when he's dead. It may be six or seven years, or twenty-two and three, But will you, till I call him back, take care of him for me? He'll bring his charms to gladden you. And shall his stay be brief, You'll have his lovely memories as solace for your grief. I cannot promise he will stay, since all from Earth return. But there are lessons, taught down there, I want this child to learn. I've looked the wide world over in search for teachers true, And from the throngs that crowd life's lanes, I have selected you. Now ... will you give him all your love ... nor think the labor in vain? Nor... hate me when I come to call..to take him back again? I fancied that I heard you say... Dear Lord, it will be done! For all the joy Your Child shall bring, the risk of grief we'll run. We'll shelter him with tenderness. We'll love him while we may, And for the happiness we've known ... forever grateful stay. But shall the angels call for him much sooner than we've planned, We'll brave the bitter grief that comes ... and try to understand.

Cyrus at age 23 with his mother, Minou.

Cyrus, age 8 1/2 years, with his father, Adji.

In His Father's Words~

The Death of A Child ...
Not many people realize that the death of a child is NOT in accordance to God’s NORMAL scheme of things. It is unnatural. God did not mean for a child to go first. A child buries the parent. Not the parent buries the child. Most people do NOT experience the pain and devastation of the death of a child. And I truly hope, no parent will ever feel the death of their child because they do not deserve it. If you love your child, the death of your child is more painful than the death of any of your loved ones, including one own’s parents. And because of this devastation, I do not wish this pain even to my enemies. I have felt the pain on the loss of a Sister; have felt the pain of the death of my Mother, and felt the death of my Father. I know how it feels. I experienced it. It is painful, looking at those old kind folks who bore you; who took care of you; went through all kinds of sacrifices and pains just to look after you for years and years, until one day the child stood on one’s own two feet, and then ... there they are, the parents, helpless and lifeless in front of you. Minou, Cyrus’ Mother, describes the death of her Father as a deep stab, like a bullet in the heart that pierces the body deeply. The deaths of my Sister, of my Mother and my Father were like Minou’s Father’s death, deep, painful, sad ... Then, the pain and sadness are gone. They remain a fond memory of the good things we did together. Our deaths as parents would be something like this. Mostly the fond memories of things we did together; and that as parents and as a family, we did what we had to do. We as parents have become older, and we lived our lives. It is now our Children’s turn to live theirs and hope, as parents, we did most of what we had to do as God had wished us. When we return to our Creator, it’s okay because we lived our lives ... we have fulfilled our lives. Cyrus’ death — the death of any child — is the death of an unfulfilled life. The pain of a child’s death is not as deep as a bullet inside you, but many, many knife wounds. One knife stab in the heart; another piercing stab next to the first one; a stab in the stomach, another in the back; another stab in the middle of the chest, another in the back, and another in the stomach, and more and more stabs, until there is nothing left of you to stab and pierce. With each knife stab, a little of your life is gone. The promise of things to come is gone. It is deep, painful, and it hurts beyond any words of description. The pain and devastation are indescribable ... and single persons – and even parents – will never feel this devastation until they experience losing a child themselves. The longer a child is with his family, the more painful his departure becomes. The death of a child like Cyrus, is even more hurtful because Cyrus was not a baby, an innocent child who could not communicate, like his foto on the left when he was 8. Nor, was he a teenager whose life experiences were not yet mature, whose death as a teenager would be more painful to the parents when he was a baby of 8. Cyrus’ death is even more painful because at the age of 25 we can talk to him; and we can exchange ideas because he is no longer a baby. He can even give us advice and life experiences which his parents never experienced, but he experienced and can describe to us. He was a young adult of 25, but in our eyes still our baby, because a child no matter his age is still, in the eyes of parents, will always be their baby; a part of us who is separated, independent from us and with a mind of his own, but nevertheless a piece of us. We looked at him and saw in him an image of ourselves whom we can talk to, share opinions with, and do things which is what life is all about. All the potentials in him in which he showed to us as he matured and that had appeared, are now all gone. We saw him, saw his mental capabilities, saw his physical attributes as a good looking young man, and was proud of him in spite of his shortcomings and his mistakes. And as parents, we always forgave the mistakes of our child when the child was alive. Now that he is gone, we do not remember his mistakes, but dwell on the mistakes we made to him. To see him die in front of our eyes, and to feel him die when his hands went limp in his Mother's hands while we were talking and laughing with him, crushed us completely beyond any words of understanding because he is now gone. Gone, are all the things we as a family could have done together. Gone are the things Cyrus could have done, and the achievements Cyrus could could have made for us as a family, for his Mother, Father, Brother and Sisters, and most of all, for himself. I will never wish – and again I say it – this pain and devastation to my own enemy, if I have any, because the words “devastation” and “pain” have no meaning ... absolutely no meaning ... until one feels the death of one’s own child. And while Cyrus’ loved ones that he left behind are aware that he belongs to God, and that God has decided to take him back, the realization that perhaps we, as his parents, did not take enough care of him is a lingering thought that haunts us. It is this thought of perhaps of this failure to God, to Cyrus, and to ourselves, especially the feeling of my failure to him as his Father, that is crushing me. Visualize if your child left and went to God before he lived his life, like ours did. The visualization of losing a child – and thank God, it is only a visualization – will give any parent a much higher appreciation of the existence of that child ... to be more forgiving to the child, and to appreciate, and to openly love the child even more. Visualizing is good for one’s soul, before – God forbid – it actually happens, as it happened to us. It will truly make a parent feel that a child is given by God for the parents to take care of, to love above all things in existence, and not to take for granted. Take good care of your child. If not ... God will take the child away from you, and you will feel the pain of failure to your child; the failure to yourselves which we are feeling, and the pain of so many stab wounds which continue and continue to hurt, and hurt, until the day we enter our graves.