EVERY morning when she wakes up Febyanti Herewila Chan sees the smiling face of her husband Andrew Chan.
It is the same smile she says he was wearing at the moment he was shot dead one year ago by an Indonesian firing squad.
He was also wearing his wedding ring that night, the symbol of his love for the young Javanese woman whom he married in a jail chapel on the eve of his execution.
A heartbroken Feby, as she is known, says the ring has never been returned to her. Attempts to recover it have yielded nothing.
“He was wearing it. I just wish that I could have it back. Every time I think about it, it gives you pain in your heart.”
Her voice trails off.
It is the final insult to the young widow.
The past year, since Andrew’s death by firing squad, has been painful as Feby has sought to heal her broken heart and strengthen her faith in God.
A Pastor, she has found it difficult to preach and is only now reaching a place where she feels she can preach without anger or bitterness.
There were times, after the execution, when she felt she wouldn’t survive, such was her profound sadness and loss.
Feby says the only thing that has kept her going is her faith and her promise to Andrew to fulfil their joint dream to set up a youth centre and school on the small Indonesian island of Sabu, one of three islands between Sumba and Rote, west of Timor.
She also vowed to fight injustice and speak out against the death penalty in her homeland and elsewhere. After his death Andrew wanted the fight to go on to save the others on death row in Indonesia and elsewhere.
The couple had long dreamt of the community centre and school on Sabu, to help educate young and underprivileged children and foster future Indonesian leaders who could grow up to also fight injustice.
“That is the only thing, to be honest, that keeps me going ….,” she says in tears. “So at least one day, if I die and I see him in heaven I can tell him I have done it,” Feby says of her plans.
“In his last letter Andrew told me to keep fighting the injustice in Indonesia.” He wanted her to study law, something she says she will do in the future.
Feby says there is a need to address the root cause of why people use and deal drugs rather than just execute traffickers.
Feby speaks with tenderness and pride at the way Andrew faced his death.
“I am so very proud about that, really proud … to face death and to smile because I know he smiled because that’s the thing I asked, did he smile, was he scared. He smiled the biggest smile that he could give and then he looked up and then they shot him. It really gives me peace.”
Feby says that on the last day, when the families were forced to leave the jail for the final time, she did not say goodbye to her husband.
“I never said goodbye to him. I just said how much I love you and I am always proud of you. I know if I broke down it is going to be so hard for him.”
Until the end, Feby never gave up hope of a miracle.
“After he died, I said God, in the Bible you can raise someone from the death to life. If you wanted you could raise him back too. Even after he died and when I saw the body I still prayed to God, you can do anything.”
It took time for the wounds to heal and the anger in her heart to subside.
“My heart is better, it is not so angry anymore, it is not so bitter anymore. The sadness, the pain, it is still there. I don’t think it will be gone completely but actually it softens. It comes from understanding that Andrew’s life is meant to be only 31 (years).
“Andrew did, in the last eight years, more than people who live 30 and 60 years of their life. How many souls he brought to God and how many souls he saved.”
Theirs was not a conventional love story. The couple first met in Bali’s Kerobokan jail. Andrew was on death row and in 2012 Feby went into the jail to do pastoral work.
But they didn’t fall in love immediately. That didn’t happen for two years. Feby recalls that she didn’t even realise the young Australian, who loved his rugby league and who was studying to be a Pastor, even liked her.
It was only after those around them started pointing out that each time she visited Andrew, a dab hand in the kitchen, he cooked for her. Later Andrew would ask her why she didn’t realise his attraction to her.
“I said because you are kind to everyone, you are nice to everyone, you always cook for everyone.”
On February 12 last year, after both Andrew and Myuran Sukumaran had been told their pleas for Presidential clemency had been denied and they awaited transfer from Bali to Nusa Kambangan, the couple got engaged. Madly in love, Andrew wanted the couple to marry within days. But so much was happening and there was so much uncertainty that they decided to leave things in the hope their lives might be spared.
But, on April 27, with just one day to live, the couple decided to marry. Andrew’s last request to authorities was that he be allowed to marry in the jail’s small chapel surrounded by his family and closest friends.
ncG1vNJzZmimlazAb6%2FOpmWarV%2BjrrW1zqeYpWeSlrmqec2ipZ5lkaOxs7HWZpqhmZ6oeri1xZ5krKCRp7K0eceeqWaglZa%2Fta7RnpikZZ%2BrsrN5x6KqZpyVlsGpe82erqxlo6m8s8WOaW2faZKbfXOAwXJucGmSZYR2fpJrbnFqlJuCooSYam8%3D