KUALA LUMPUR: It was a bittersweet moment for Irfan, the frontman of popular Indonesian pop rock band Seventeen, who posted a photo of himself and his recently deceased wife, Dylan Sahara, on Instagram yesterday.
The 36-year-old vocalist shared that the photo of the couple was actually taken 20 minutes before a tsunami had ripped through the Tanjung Lesung beach resort on the western tip of Java where they were at on Dec 22 of last year.
When the tsunami hit, Irfan and his band had just started performing onstage in a music concert. This resulted in the deaths of his bandmates, as well as his beloved actress and TV personality wife, whose bodies were swept away.
In his post he wrote: “God has once again shown his power.” Irfan then related a poignant moment that would be the very last time he saw Dylan, who was just a day short of turning 26 at the time.
“My wife came to me for the last time behind the stage, just before Seventeen was about to perform that night at Tanjung Lesung, for a hug and a kiss on her cheek. She was asking, ‘Do you love me? Yes?’,” he wrote.
Irfan added: “Honestly, this wasn’t a usual thing that she did (to see me right before a show) since she knows that I always like to fully focus on my work with Seventeen.”
He explained that the touching photo was taken approximately 20 minutes before the tragedy had struck at about 10.10pm on Dec 22.
But what made it more heart-wrenching was the fact that the photo was taken from the camera of Andi, the drummer of Seventeen who had also lost his life in the calamity.
“By His power, God has delivered a little memory card that was clearly from Andi’s camera. It’s a fact that before he left us, Andi still had time to immortalise the two of us together through the camera that he really loved.”
“By the grace of God, and thank you to Andi, who has given me something truly priceless, this very last photo of me and my dear Dylan,” he wrote.
Irfan, whose real name is Riefian Fajarsyah, added that there were also more photos and videos in the memory card that featured the last moments together of the various members of the family that was Seventeen.
According to him, these new discoveries would be incorporated into an upcoming documentary on Seventeen’s journey.
He hoped that this would be a fitting tribute to the memory of his wife and the deceased members of the band, namely bassist Bani, guitarist Herman and Andi.
Irfan’s post has so far garnered close to 650,000 likes and over 5,200 comments of encouragement and positivity from fans.