During the final stages of writing this book, Nurijah, whose profile appears in Chapter 2, died. The circumstances surrounding her death were remarkable and illustrate the very significant role cultural consonance, which is discussed in some depth in Chapter 10, plays in the experience of older Minangkabau.

One day a few months ago, Nurijah fell ill. This in itself was not unusual; she had often felt unwell since suffering a stroke in Koto many years before and becoming paralysed as a result of it. This intensified after her children brought her to Jakarta to live. She hated the city and repeatedly asked her daughters why one of them could not return to Koto with her. All four of her daughters live and work in Jakarta and cannot leave, especially for an extended period of time. Finally, Nurijah had to agree to leave Koto and her home there as there was no one who could take care of her in the village. She did not want to live with her son and his wife even though they are also in Koto.

While Nurijah's complaints about her health would not normally alarm her children, this time was different. She began to deteriorate quickly. Within hours, her breathing became irregular, and she was in and out of consciousness, which had never happened before. The daughter, whose turn it was to take care of Nurijah, immediately contacted her three sisters and one brother who live in Jakarta, and they all arrived within a few hours. Everyone agreed that Nurijah's situation was very serious, particularly as, whenever she was conscious, she insisted that she wanted to go back to Koto immediately. The children were all stunned and confused and tried to persuade Nurijah that she was in no condition to travel. They promised to take her back to Koto when she felt better, if that was really what she wanted. Conveying this took hours because of Nurijah's condition and because her speech was even harder to understand than usual.