At 77 years old, when most people spend their days resting at home, Grandpa Tukiran continues to work in order to survive. With a severely curved back and underdeveloped legs, he cannot walk upright like others. For decades, his only way to move has been by crawling on the ground.

According to people who knew his family, Grandpa Tukiran was born healthy. His life changed when he was just 10 months old after suffering a prolonged high fever. Following medical treatment at the time, his condition worsened. He experienced repeated convulsions, and as he grew older, his bones gradually became stiff and misshapen. By the age of five, his body had developed into the condition he lives with today.

Medical care was limited in his rural area at the time, and his family had little understanding of what was happening. What began as an illness in infancy became a lifelong physical limitation.

Grandpa Tukiran once lived with parents who cared deeply for him. That support ended more than 30 years ago when they passed away. Since then, he has lived alone in a modest home, without family to cook for him or keep him company.

Daily life is quiet. There are long hours with no conversation, no visitors, and no certainty about the next meal.

To earn a living, Grandpa Tukiran offers to sweep yards for neighbors. Because he cannot stand, he crawls while gathering dry leaves and debris. Payment is not fixed. Some neighbors give him around Rp 5,000, others give whatever they can.

“I don’t always get work,” he explained softly. “Sometimes, in a whole week, only six people ask me to help.”

This simple sentence reveals more than it seems. His words are not spoken in complaint, but in quiet acceptance. The uncertainty of daily income has become normal to him. Each request for help is not just work, but a chance to eat better that day.

On days when no one calls him to work, Grandpa Tukiran relies on cassava he grows himself. When he manages to save a little money, he buys rice and salted fish. The fish is carefully stored and eaten slowly, sometimes over several weeks, to make it last.

Food, for him, is never taken for granted. Every meal depends on effort, patience, and restraint.

There was a time when Grandpa Tukiran fell ill and could not work at all. What hurt him most was not the physical discomfort, but the loneliness.

“I felt very sad,” he recalled. “There was no one with me.”

When a neighbor eventually came by and brought him food, the gesture moved him deeply. It wasn’t just the relief of eating. It was the feeling of being remembered, of knowing someone still cared. He said it reminded him of the way his parents once looked after him.

Grandpa Tukiran does not speak of big dreams. His wishes are modest and practical:

• To be able to eat every day without worrying about tomorrow’s meals

• To have a small home-based livelihood so he no longer has to crawl outside to work

Despite being stared at or misunderstood by strangers, he continues to smile. Those who know him say his demeanor is gentle and calm, even after a lifetime of hardship.

In his remaining years, Grandpa Tukiran hopes for nothing more than peace, dignity, and the feeling that his life still matters. His story is a reminder that resilience often lives quietly, far from attention, carried forward one day at a time.