“CRYING STONE”

Once upon a time, there was a family of a widow, an her only daughter living in a hinterland of west
Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. The widow was just an old woman, while her daughter was a
charming girl, whose name was Darmi.
Both lived in a decreipt hut. They lived poor since the widow’s husband passed away. He was gone
leaving no inheritance to the family. Consequently, to fulfil their needs, they were forced willy-nilly
to work much harder.
However, Darmi was not a hard-worker, totally differed from her mother. She was a lazy girl who
spent almost of her times dressing up and adoring her reflection on the mirror. One of her bad habits
was showing off her beauty to the local people leaving in the sorroundings. She never wanted to help
her mother working at the field. If her mother asked her for help, Darmi refused.
“Girl, will you help at the field, now?” the mother asked.
“No, I won’t! I don’t want to go there. I’m afraid my skin turns dark,” Darmi answered to her mother
without looking at her.
“You let me to work there alone, don’t you?”
“Mom, everyone knows that you are an old woman while I am a pretty young girl. So, people will get
attracted to me and not you. That is why I prefer staying at home to working outside in the field
because I...! am....! waiting for a rich boy propose me to get married with.
Darmis’s mother was speechless to hear that. It was as she was stricken by a light realizing that her
daughter did no respect to her at all. Then, she want to field alone and Darmi stayed at home.
Worse, Darmi used to beg money from her mother, soon after she went back from work. In fact, she
earned too little to meet their daily need.
“Mom, where is the money?” Darmi asked.
“No! I won’t give this to you. We need this to buy some foods,” the mother said.
“But, I’m running out of face powder. I don’t have it anymore, Mom! I need to by a new one,”
The mother got angry to her daughter but she repressed it. She surrendered and gave her the money.
Darmi “bad-habit” towards her mother occured almost everyday. The mother worked to hard in the
field, while darmi stayed at home. The mother went back home, then darmi begged for the money.
One day, darmi’s mother was going to a nearest market from her home. Darmi knew this,and she got
her mother to buy some cosmetics. However, darmi’s mother did not know anything about cosmetics.
She asked darmi to accompany her to the market.
“Go with me to the market so you can choose which one that you want,” the mother said.
“ I don’t want to go with you!” Darmi answered
“But I don’t know which one!”
Then darmi gave up. She followed her mother to go to the market.
“Ok, Mom! I will go with you, but please, you have to walk behind me!” said Darmi, who got her
mother to act as if the old woman was her maid.
“Why, girl?” the mother wondered.
“I feel ashamed to walk along with an old woman like you. Look at me! I’m a gracefull girl so I won’t
people leave me because they know you’re my mother!” Darmi explained.
Both then looked for goods in the market. Darmi’s mother walked behind her daughter. she brought a
plastic bag containing the things they got from there.
Actually, they were between a girl and her mother. But somehow they looked contrast. Darmi wore
elegant clothes and walked gracefully, while her mother wore a worn out clothes with rumbling face.
Along the way in the market, many greated Darmi, and some of them asked who the old woman was.
In a moment, Darmi met her friends. “Hi, Darmi! Where are you going?”
“Just looking around here. I wish I could find something good here,” she said.
“Then, who’s that one? Is that your mom? One of her friends asked Darmi while painting at the
mother.
“No, of course! She is a maid at my house, gais!”
What an attacking answer! Darmis’s mother could no longer restrain her anger. Soon after darmi said
that words, the mother stopped, and took a sit on a swing on the sidewalk.
“Why do you stop?” Darmi questioned her mother but she did not call her “Mom.”
“Hey, are you listening to me?!” she shouted once more because the mother was just silent.
The mother keep silent, ignoring the call of her daughter who had hurt her.
Since then, Darmi’s mother mumbled with her hands looked up to the sky. She was reciting prayers to
God so that her daughter was cursed to be stone.
“Hey, old woman! What ... are.... you doing?!!” Darmi kept stubborn, admitting the old woman was
not her mother.
Darmi’s mother intended not to answer. She kept praying to God upon a curse towards her daughter.
All of sudden, the sky turned dark. The loud thunder roared back and forth. The rain fell heavily.
At that time, Darmi could move her foots anymore. Gradually, her foots turned into black stone that
later on coverd her entire body.
“Mom,....! Mom....! What’s happening to me?” finally she called her mother “Mom.” “I am sorry,
Mom! I’m so sorry...,” she cried loudly.
Everything went on. The course upon Darmi’s disobedience had happened. The stone covered almost
all her body.
When the stone almost reach her head, Darmi shed tears. All the people passing by the market saw
this. Likewise, they watched the girl crying.
The weather returned as normal. Now, the stone had covered Darmi’s entire body, the disobedient
girl. What a miracle, the stone, due the present, keeps spouting water as if a crying girl. Some people
took the stone, and put it on a corner of the market. Since that time, people called the stone the
“crying stone”.

The moral value of this story, we should obey all our parents’s good orders.