{"id":6536,"date":"2026-03-17T15:35:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/?p=6536"},"modified":"2026-03-17T15:35:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:35:49","slug":"when-the-mortar-fell-silent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/when-the-mortar-fell-silent\/","title":{"rendered":"When the mortar fell silent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Najhanne Buat Asum
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAs-salamu alaykum! I am home, omi!\u201d I called out as I entered our house.<\/p>\n

I kicked off my shoes without bending down and dropped my bag on the nearest table. With a few steps, I walked to the sofa in the living room like a zombie fixated on its target. I let myself sink into it, allowing the sofa to swallow me whole.<\/p>\n

It had been a long day at school, so I thought of resting for a while. I took out my phone and opened Instagram. My thumb moved on its own, like a machine programmed for a single task. I scrolled through the posts and stories of the celebrities and influencers I followed before moving on to my reels feed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatakolay, come help me here in the kitchen!\u201d<\/p>\n

I paused my scrolling and looked up from my phone, only to be met by the darkness framed by our windows. I hadn\u2019t even realized that two hours had already gone by.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrepare the palapa for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

I growled the moment I heard the word\u00a0palapa<\/em>\u00a0from my mother, whose voice came from the kitchen.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m doing something!\u201d I yelled back, hoping she would hear me and let me be.<\/p>\n

In the middle of my laughter at memes, I heard a familiar\u00a0thud-thud-thud<\/em>\u00a0coming from the kitchen. The steady pounding of the pestle against the mortar echoed through every corner of the house.<\/p>\n

Moved by the noise, I placed my phone on the table and marched toward the kitchen, my footsteps echoing in rhythm with the pounding of the palapa. When I arrived, I saw my mother sitting on a small bamboo chair, pounding the palapa on the floor, as it was believed to make less noise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said I\u2019ll do it later, omi!\u201d I said defensively.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut dinner is approaching, watakolay. Just prepare the plates on the table,\u201d my mother said, her eyes still fixed on the mortar.<\/p>\n

I moved quickly to the kitchen racks. Still hearing the steady thump, I asked, \u201cWhy do we even need palapa? I\u2019m sure the dish would taste fine without it. We\u2019ve tried plenty of meals elsewhere without it, and they turned out just as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pounding of the palapa slowed for a moment, and I was certain my mother was listening. She didn\u2019t respond, though. I knew she was tired of my repeated questions every time I was in the kitchen with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just adds more effort to the preparation,\u201d I added, shrugging my shoulders to break the silence that had settled in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

I never understood why palapa seemed so important, not just in our home but in almost every household in our neighborhood in Malaig. Sometimes, when I walked home, I could hear the familiar steady thumps coming from inside people\u2019s houses. I also remembered going with my mother to the wet market. Whenever we reached the stall where she bought\u00a0sakurab<\/em>, I would purposely stand in front of it so she wouldn\u2019t see it. I always failed, though. Of course, she knew exactly where to find it.<\/p>\n

I guess my dislike for palapa came from how it is prepared. I never really liked having to clean and chop the sakurab, ginger, and chili, then add salt, and finally do the exhausting work of pounding everything several times to get that slightly coarse, moist paste. The loud noise it made did not help either.<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, one quiet evening, after stepping into the house from school, I went through my usual routine. But instead of collapsing onto the sofa, I headed straight to the kitchen to prepare my dinner.<\/p>\n

In silence, I prepared my favorite dish, a\u00a0piyaparan a manok<\/em>. It had been a long time since I last had it. I followed the steps saved on my phone, chopping and stirring as best as I could. But nothing felt quite right for some reason. The kitchen smelled familiar with the aroma rising from the pan on the stove, yet it did not feel like home.<\/p>\n

When everything was ready, I set the plates on the table and served myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cBismillah\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The first bite should have felt familiar, comforting, the way it always did. But it didn\u2019t. I expected the usual warmth and joy from that bite, but it never came. My chest tightened, my heart sank, and tears rolled down my cheeks.<\/p>\n

I got up and walked to the kitchen, thinking a little salt might fix the dish. But again, it didn\u2019t. The same thing happened. The ache inside me only grew.<\/p>\n

I thought I was going to get the salt, but deep down I knew what I really wanted\u2026 to see my mother. I found myself hoping, quietly and desperately, that she would call me, ask me to help, even just once.<\/p>\n

Instead, what met me was a truth I had long avoided, a reality I had refused to face. Across the kitchen, the mortar and pestle rested on the rack, dust slowly gathering around them. Then it hit me, heavy, suffocating, and merciless, that I could only turn away. I left the kitchen and went to my room, crying.<\/p>\n

Only then did the silence make sense.<\/p>\n

My mother was gone.<\/p>\n

Guilt slowly creeps over me every time I think about the moments I took her for granted when she was still with me. For the past few days, I have not been able to grieve properly, as guilt lingers over everything.<\/p>\n

I remembered all the times the house was filled with her presence: the hum of the washing machine as she did the laundry, the scratch of the broom gathering leaves outside, the clatter of dishes as she washed them, and most of all, the steady thump of the pestle against the mortar as she pounded palapa.<\/p>\n

All those sounds were proof that she was here. And I am angry at myself for letting her do it all alone\u2014the laundry, the leaves, the dishes, the palapa.<\/p>\n

Now, I sit in the house, uneasy with the silence I once thought I wanted. Of all the sounds that once filled this home, I will miss her voice the most.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatakolay!\u201d<\/p>\n

Her voice. I will never hear it again.<\/p>\n

Now, my favorite dish will never taste the same, not because of the absence of palapa, but because of the absence of my mother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Najhanne Buat Asum \u201cAs-salamu alaykum! I am home, omi!\u201d I called out as I entered our house. I kicked off my shoes without bending down and dropped my bag on the nearest table. With a few steps, I walked to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6537,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6536\/revisions\/6537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}