How It Feels to Be Poor After Once Being Rich

Sad, full of regret, depression, and disappointment. In essence, my life experience serves as a lesson for Vocal Media readers: if you're already at the top, don't get cocky and forget yourself. The wheel of life keeps turning.

This was my house in the 2000s. It's my real house, not a photo taken from Google. My house is about 400 square meters in downtown Sukabumi, a city in West Java.

My father is a renowned surgeon in the city. When I just graduated from high school, I already experienced changing vehicles. From Toyota Kijang, Great Corolla, Daihatsu Taruna, to the new Civic. I even remember in 2010, our family had seven cars. My father had three: a BMW 3 Series, a Toyota Innova, and a Vios. I had a new Civic, and my two younger siblings each had a Honda Jazz and a Toyota Soluna. And my brother used a pickup truck. Before motorcycles, we had several units.

In addition, we have several housing units, both in Bandung, Bogor, and an apartment in the Central Park area of ​​West Jakarta.

Our life was very enjoyable: abundant assets, vacations abroad, studying at a famously expensive university in Jakarta, and we always had things that others didn't have. From gadgets no one else had at the time to the latest video game consoles and electronic devices.

Our financial life has been very successful. Everything has gone smoothly, and we are always grateful for the blessings God has given us. My father didn't have everything by accident. It all came through his extraordinary hard work and dedication. As I remember, we too experienced hardship. My father was the son of a farmer in Sumatra, so he didn't come from a wealthy family. When my father was still in his early career, and when I was in elementary school, we moved around because we didn't have a permanent home.

Because of his tenacity and perseverance, we are where we are today. Successful and wealthy. Oh yes, our mother left our father when we were still young. She had an affair with another man and decided to abandon him and us, her three children. Practically all of this success was achieved by my father alone.

Until finally, our happiness vanished. In March 2010, my father was suddenly hospitalized, even though he seemed healthy. However, it turned out he had long suffered from liver disease and had hidden it from us, his children. After several days in the hospital, he suddenly became critical, and was finally transferred to Jakarta. Because the hospital in our city couldn't handle my father's illness, the trip to Jakarta took about three hours, and finally, midway through the journey, our father took his last breath.

Losing my father made me and my two younger siblings stressed, frustrated, and lost. My personal life was a mess for about a year, as was my two younger siblings'.

After our psychological state improved, we began to organize ourselves again. Most of Papa's assets were sold.

The assets sold were divided equally among my father's four heirs. Each received nearly 500 million rupiah. The remaining 1.5 billion rupiah went to a business managed by my younger brother, which included building a restaurant, an internet cafe, and a video game store.

However, because we were overly dependent on our father, my two younger siblings and I lost control. The business my younger siblings ran only lasted three years. Due to severe mismanagement and improper financial management, it ultimately went bankrupt. All the shophouse assets and money were lost, seized by the bank. My younger siblings still owed money to the bank and vendors when they declared bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, I spent more of my money on pleasures, living a luxurious lifestyle with a high cost of living but a low income. (I was still working at an entry-level job at the time.) I frequently bought expensive, useless items, and continued my hobby of changing cars and modifying them. This messed up my cash flow, and within four years, my father's inheritance was wiped out.

Likewise, my third sibling spent hundreds of millions of rupiah on medical school but couldn't complete it, again due to the demotivation of losing our father, our main pillar. Ultimately, his funds ran out and he couldn't finish his studies.

So it's fair to say that my father's inheritance, worth billions, was completely wiped out in less than five years. Even with a minus, my second younger sibling even lived like a vagrant for almost a year, jobless and without income. He subsisted solely on scraps and the charity of others.

At that time, I also always felt inadequate because I was used to a high lifestyle and found it difficult to accept the reality and had to lower my standard of living.

And how are we now?

As I said at the beginning, the wheel of life turns. It started with our family's poverty, then we were blessed abundantly by our father. Even though he was gone, we were left with provisions we didn't use properly. And finally, we're back at the bottom of the wheel of life now...

Well, that's life. We can't complain, and we enjoy being on top. We also enjoy being on the bottom.

Our lives now are so much better than they used to be. I'm grateful to have a good job, so I don't fall too far into the bottom of life.

but my two younger siblings are very far from a decent life.

Well, hopefully, we can learn from this life experience, because honestly, to this day, I often feel hurt when I see my friends greeting Father's Day and taking photos with their dads. Because they have that privilege, I can only pray and ask forgiveness from my father in heaven.

Happy Father's day in heaven dad, you must be happy in there. See U again in the new world Dad. You will always be my Hero

In memoriam, our beloved father

Update

While opening old files, I found a memorable photo.

I got a photo of the condition of the house in 2006, the house was like a showroom.

I remember clearly that there was a Great Corolla, no one used it (because there were too many cars), a Vios for my father to go to the office, a Soluna for my younger brother, a Civic for me, a Jazz for my younger sister, and a BMW for my father to take to weddings or out of town occasionally.

It was a very beautiful time.