2012 fast approaching
it’s a good time to reflect on the past year and come with some good intentions
for the New Year. Meanwhile, this too is the best time for me to revise a few
incidents that had happened to this year alone. There has been nothing but a
real soap opera that involves me. From my grandma passing on to my biological
father has finally disowned me. Is it any surprise I never felt a shit bit of
impact after all this was throwing at me during the conversation(I would not
call it a convo, more like a deafening scream) that we had recently (well 3-4 months ago)
Note : we barely spoke period.
Has anyone of you
known the difference between a father and a daddy? Here here stop
cracking your head, I found this, all you gotta do is read it…
this question was asked by pita (my forever mischievous 11 year old, who is working real hard and always find ways to get me) she is so trapped in playing
out of the old military adage “if it doesn’t work, double it” she just has to
get me and win..and that smirk ..hmmpp..
So what’s exactly
going on to the point of being disowned? Well it was all started during my
grandmother’s wake/funeral. A question was raised to me by my aunt who lives in
Singapore despite of her being estranger (again another one I have not seen for
god knows how long) but due to a certain level of respect I always have for
people, I talk to her. Her question goes like this :- “ it seems like you
father is in real bad shape” my replied
: and I need to know this because? Dramatic music playing on the background.
She must have felt that she asked the right question but to the wrong person,
so she just got up and left. No surprise there, news travel fast, especially
the bad ones, so It got to my father..na na na..
However,
let me just summarise everything from the good old days. A woman from a foreign
country being married to my father, she left shortly after before me reaching
3. I remember mentioning we did live in poverty, life was hard then bla bla.
And since then my life was a living hell. I got beaten up real bad as and when
he likes, if this is a revenge he wishes to seek, the best target should have
been “ fill in the blank please” few years later he remarried to another woman
“ whom I should technically now called her my mother” they have another two
children a girl and a boy. With their presence, my life wasn’t getting any
better but worse. I spent most of my childhood counting stroke marks or rather
at times comparing them with my school mates, often I am the
winner…bwahahahaha.. while other probably enjoying the tender loving care from
their parents, showered with gifts etc. Imagine my life back then. Having to
walk to school, having to do the household chores, etc.
without any toys, but that’s not the worse, but corporal punishment was,
without good reasons.
Truthfully, the only
wish I had back then was, I need to leave this house. And I must leave this
house. I can no longer putting up with a
monster in disguise. The trauma I endured, the coldness he had towards me,
spanking a defenceless child without a good cause? I would really like to
demand for answers, and it better be a damn good one. But so alas, there is no single
answer to this question, he could not come up with any, merely because logic
doesn’t work for him, because all he said to me was : you can change a partner
but I am your father and that is the fact you cannot change (by default a one
way street thinking) has he ever wonder, me being his daughter is by choice ?
but anyway, some people can become so wedded to their particular view of how
thing should work and by no surprise he happens to be one of them. And for the
woman who knows absolutely nothing (I kid you not, anything I ask “I don’t
know” is always her best answer) but when it comes to her Prince, well well,
she sure has a lot to say. So during the last convo, my dear father shouting
for all he might, I quote “ you are eating shit, you are useless for not
helping out” got me ponder, if I ate shit, then shit is all he fed me thru out
my growing up journey, so who to blame ? me? I don’t think so !! me is useless
for not helping out? Hmm how about pumping in a few thousands a month to no
end? Here is what happen, their o-so-precious son who’s now 30 but never work a
day aye, manage to get married twice and now having two children. All these
folks money went into supporting him, yet that isn’t enough, drag me into the
equation with “ you are the sister or you are my daughter (wow since when) I
must contribute as well. Just imagine this peeps . I work 7 days a week 24
hours isn’t enough for me, I do everything on my own, me counting on no one,
yet they rightfully ask me to give my hard earn money away to a certain someone
who shake legs at home ?justifiable ? make any cow sense? And now suddenly I am useless bwahahahaha……
wow !! I had my ultimatum right there and then. I said to him..
“ I walked out of this
so-called home, when I was 10, I have not caused any shame nor complain nor
come back to beg for money, ooo trust me not a nickel I ask from them, never
worries them, never bothers them, so in my book if there should be some feeling
of reciprocal obligation on the part of me, I believe I have been nothing but a
real filial piety”
He
said to me, (I have waited 40 years for him to say this, never thought this
came true) “I know I have treated you very badly, I now know the pain I have
caused you, I regretted what I have done to you, after realizing how bad it was
with you, this is why I have to make it up to your brother, if I did not help
him, then no one will” HUH…I was in a shock after he finished this statement.
Fuyooo champion la him.
He did not right the
wrong but make it up to another LMAO, I left after that statement made, I told
him I can no longer keep providing for them or that fler. Shall he wishes to
disown me, so be it !! Truth is everyone can be parents, but not everyone can
be respectable parents.
My dad & my mom (I
know it gets confuse, will write about both my adopted parents next time) came
to know of this incident, both says “time to put a stop” to all that, I exhale
and nodded in agreement. Truthfully, I don’t make a lot of money every month. it
is a once a year payouts/dividends for the fair share I hold from 50% to now
70% from managing several companies, I will get quite an obscene amount of
dough that said. So all the happening
got me thinking, many are the way that parents instil a sense of obligation in
their children(people are still practicing this, I cannot believe it). So by
accepting life and nurturance a child apparently incurs a debt that can be
repaid only by meeting parental expectations? This is justifiable how? Much is
made of the burdens of parenthood, starting with the pain of childbirth, the
loss of sleep with infancy, the endless driving required by organized
activities, and so on. So “what do I owe my parents?” or “What does pita owes
me?” this same question frequently
distorts people’s lives well into, and sometimes throughout adulthood. Fact is
that our children owe us nothing. It was our decision to bring them into the
world. If we loved them and provided for their needs it was our task as
parents, not some selfless act. I was a very new parent, I have no idea how to
take care of a newborn baby, but I knew from the beginning that I am raising
her to leave me, and it was always my obligation to help her do this unburdened
by a sense of unending gratitude or perpetual debt. All this explain why I
would not raise her the way my so-called “parents” had raised me. The same
reason why I banned on corporal punishment , there was never a cane seen in my
household, pita has the freedom to speak however she likes, do whatever she
likes, because how one think is very personal, to dictate how one behave nor
think is only momentarily can never be permanent .
So
now you know more or less there is to know about me, my dear friend Ashley once
said about me being garang (fierce), well, knowing my past now, how could I not
stand up for myself, how could I not be brave when challenged? Or else who
will? How could I not be more gutsy? Or fierce? I love myself more then anything in the world, this attitude is best known
around people who knows me really well i.e Alfred,Rob,Lynn etc, people who sees
me thru my ups and downs and experiences has help me grow, wisdom will come to
your aid when you needed it
holds true :D, I may not be very smart, nor my English is any good, but I can
assure you my daughter’s future is secured with love and happiness, coz I always
has a minimum of 5 years plan ahead, so what else could an illiterate person
like me to ask for more? I already have
enough for what’s to have, so what else? This is a gift giving season, so I
will give you the greatest gift of all, something that had help shape/strength
me, has been with me for 4 decades. I hope you will like and appreciate them like
I do, Even if you are facing a bitter aspect of life, for life is precious, don’t
give up.
My gift to all of you.
种树者必培其根，种德者必养其心
好了傷疤不忘疼，生活富了不忘窮。
恒心架起通天路，勇氣打開智慧門。
若要生活好，勤勞、節儉、儲蓄三件寶。
有源之水水常清，有根之木木常青。
本領是從困難中學會的。
Anyway, thanks for reading hahaha, and sorry to bored you with such long
sob story . I wish all of you have a real happy new new year ahead and of
course may all your wishes come true…hehe. and to those who had the same encounter or my ardent silent readers, I hope you will have a better and hopeful tomorrows......
