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My, my. All the troubles I went through as a child...I wonder how they really built up my character.
Sunny days passed and the warm nights kept me comfort with it's gentle breeze. My family and I were living in poverty, loving every minute we had with each other. You see, we never really had time to spend for the family quality. Mama and papa had trouble finding jobs. We were immigrants that knew very little english therefor making it hard to make an honest living. I was three when I started to remember this. Everyday, mama would wake us up at four in the morning to go to the babysitter's house. Papa would carry us downstairs and went to the first floor of the building. That was where our babysitter, Helen, lived. Helen was a nice lady but she didn't seem to like children much. Helen had a cat that I thought was very cute. I remember trying to pet her once but it didn't go so well. Helen's cat scratched me and left a scar that lasted for most of my life. Anyway, Mama and papa would give them videos for us to watch before we would head off to bed again. We always had trouble going back to sleep when we were awaken. If we had finally gotten to sleep before the movie ended, our babysitter would wake us up for breakfast. We got to choose what we wanted to eat and how much we wanted to eat. If we didn't finish, she'd make us finish. Mama would always pick us up a bit after three o' clock in the afternoon. Mama was a seamstress working at the fabric company. We'd say goodbye to Helen if we weren't sleeping by then and go back upstairs. Papa was never home until about two in the morning. I never questioned why but I do know that I never really got to see him. One day, papa was outside talking to his friends and the people who were living in the apartment. They were drinking and smoking and having a fun time. I enjoyed the fact that my papa finally had some time off work to hang out. He always worked so hard. But as the afternoon progressed, I found that my papa...got arrested. The police car was wailing outside. I saw that my mama was crying. I didn't know why at the time but I started to cry. I asked my mama, "Where is papa going?" That day, my mama sent my sister and me to my cousin's house. My mama had left to who knows where and I was spending time with my cousins. When she came to pick us up, there was papa. He was sleeping on the mattress that was on the floor. He had his blanket tightly covered around him and look angry as well as he looked disappointed. Life eventually got back to normal and this continued our life for the next two years.
Summertime was a grand time. Our uncle bought an apartment and we moved into it. It was hard work moving all the things and going back and forth but we had very little things to move. Back then, this place looked big. But that was because we still hadn't had the money to buy better furniture and stuff. I honestly liked the apartment and I think my parents did too. This building gave me sweet dreams and beside the apartment was a huge lawn with even a small berry tree. And unlike the other house, my sister and I were able to go outside and have fun like any other children. Life was good. My sister and myself were not always confided into only our part of the apartment. We visited the other people at the building and they were always nice to us. Our uncle even moved into the apartment building. We had everything we really needed. It couldn't be great all the time. It came to my parents that they could not pay the regular bills. Papa was still working late and mama still had her same job. I was in kindergarten while my little sister was in preschool and I always came home earlier than she did. Mama had just picked me up from school. She went inside and left the door open. Mama had the bills in her hands and she laid down on the couch. She put her arm over her eyes and sighed. I went to my room to change my clothes while my mama was still in her "work" clothes. I went back to the living room and saw that my mama was crying. I went to her and asked, "Mama...what's wrong?" She didn't answer that question but instead asked a question of her own. I'll always remember those words. It cut deeply into me whether I truly understood at that time.
"Do you want to leave Papa?"
I was shocked that my mama would even ask me anything like that. I told her that I didn't want to and that I wanted her to stay with my sister, my papa, and me. She recomposed herself and said, "Okay." I never thought of it when I was little but I always did remember it. Months passed and I saw my mama with my uncle. I was going to play a game with my little sister but I stopped. They were talking like the usual and I eavesdropped on them. My mama said, "The bills are overwhelming. I want to leave him but she doesn't want to." That hurt me even more and made me remember what she had asked me all those months before. I wondered to myself...will mama leave us? She never did leave us. Even if she wanted to leave papa, she loved my sister and me too much to leave us all. Mama was a strong prideful woman that had a lot of illnesses, and many of them were contracted by her stress with paying the bills and keeping her family stable. We managed with it though. I don't know how, but we did. Our apartment was broken into twice in the same year but our uncle reinforced it everytime and we continued with our lives. Years passed. We were finally able to pay off all the bills with ease and we were able to refurnish our living room. One day, mama and papa got into an argument. I don't know what happened. I don't know what they were screaming about. I didn't want to know as long as they would stay together but my faith in them was very little. My papa went into our room and he cradled me like he always did. He told me how much he loved me and how much he wanted me to become successful when I grew up. Papa told me how much he wanted me to have a better life than he did. I built up the strengh to ask my papa, "Are you and mama going to have a divorce?" He said no. He said that whenever they disagree with eachother, they tell their belief. If it truly went wild, they would argue. They told eachother in word form instead to hurting each other physically. He said that he'd always love mama and would never want to hurt her. He said that he loved me and my sister too much to ever get in a fight with mama and then divorce. He wanted our family to be a family.
V Ko · Fri Jan 04, 2008 @ 03:35pm · 0 Comments |
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