Breaks my heart to say

A flood of emotion rushed over me after receiving an e-mail from my mom yesterday. Well, she sent me an e-mail since she thought there was something funky with the ATM card that she has. It's actually my card that I gave her so that she can get some cash out when she needs it on one of my accounts. I just do transfers to it every month insted of sending through Western Union and paying about a 10 % fee everytime. What happened was she checked the balance and saw that 6, 000 pesos (about $55) got deducted from it since the last time she took some money out around the middle of July. It really would not have bothered me too much just seeing what had happened so far. However, when she mentioned that she about went mad trying to figure out where the money went and just cried and cried not knowing what to do. Normally, I would feel bad hearing about that but instead, all that welled up inside me was anger which doesn't happen too often. It's rare that I get really angry but with the mother situation, it has been bottling up since the beginning of last year. I'm gonna write, I wouldn't say a bit, since I tend to spill my heart out when I do post.

As some would know, I was born to a Filipina mother and an American father twenty three years ago, July '83. My dad was in the Navy at that time, and got stationed in Korea few months after I was born. During his time in Korea, he met an American woman, P which soon became my stepmother, a year and a half after I was born. I don't remember the exact dates but after they got married, they ended up staying in Korea/Guam (?) until it was time for them to move back to the states in '87. My mom on the other hand moved back to her parent's house, a single mom with a son from a G.I. The only memory I have of my dad is swimming at a hotel pool with him, while I swim under the water while someone throws a lollipop and I try to get it. I think that was when I was about 2 yrs old, and it so happens to be my first memory as well. After they moved to California, my dad got out of the Navy and that's when he stopped supporting us. You'd think by then, my mom would get a job at least, to provide food for the table but instead she came to an agreement with my Grandma that she'll be the housekeep when my Grandma left for Norway to work. My Grandpa (the one that just died) used to be in the merchant marines and that was how he acquired Norwegian citizenship which he passed on to my Grandma. That is an Asian culture thing, some family members go abroad to help provide to their family which what happened in my case though the ones who were left behind didn't even get a job. In the house that we moved back to, I have two uncles, one younger auntie, an older auntie, with her husband and three kids in one part of the house and my grandpa and of course my mom. So that's all of us living together in one house. It had its ups and downs, and drama that went along with it.

One of the main things was my mom who had me, but with no husband. Add to that, that it was with a foreign guy who married somebody else after I was born. So that made me a bastard who in noooo way could pass for a Filipino. I think when I realized that I don't look like everybody else, that's when the sense of not belonging start to creep in. I did know my father, but after '87 the communication pretty much stopped. He never wrote after that, and it would always have to be us that initiates the phone calls on holidays and such. I didn't know anything about him, didn't know what his likes or dislikes were, didn't even know what he did for a living after he got out of the military. That kinda bothered me, I felt embarrassed getting asked by people what I'm doing in the Philippines if I was American, or what is it that my father does. Anyway, getting back to my Mom she pretty much took my Grandma's role, taking care of the house, cooking food, doing laundry, etc etc pretty much something a maid does now that I think about it. She says she did this so she can provide for me which I did believe and was thankful for at one point.

During those years we lived with the rest of the family, there'll be times that my grandpa or my uncle would get drunk and verbally abuse my mom, or even slap her or kick her out of the house. I don't remember being verbally abused but even if I was, I might just have blocked those times to protect myself. We stayed at other relatives' house for a bit, though a few days after, my mom would make the choice to come back to the house since she had "nowhere to go." This went on until I was about 13 yrs old. If you would have seen me at school, you wouldn't think that this kind of stuff was going on at my house. I kept a brave face, and I think I was too busy trying to please my dad. Trying to elicit some sort of response saying Hey, you're doing well in school son, I'm proud of you or even something to acknowledge my existence. I did really well in school, winning all sort of competitions, math, history, journalism, even part of the school dance team. There really was little I can do about the things that were happening. I just stayed out of everyone's way and kept my mouth shut.
I was hurting. I remember very vividly, being in the second grade and crying about the way my life was. There's a song that they used to play every morning before the flag ceremony called Maghintay Ka Lamang (Just Wait) by Ted Ito and there you'd see me in the corridors, looking out to the square, head over my arms, crying and telling myself to hold on, that things will get better. It was growing up that I put my mom up on a pedestal, and vowed to make her life better than the way it was. She blamed my dad for everything that had happened, if he hadn't done this, if he wouldn't have done that, our lives would be so much better. If he sent us money, it wouldn't have to be like this. Money money money. She used to tell me how she was getting ready to go abroad when she met my father, and how everything turned out the way it was after that happened. She used to tell me that she loved me so, but I think being told that her life would have been a lot different had she not met him, what does that tell me exactly? Eventhough she said she loved me, I felt responsible for the way things turned out and felt a little guilt in being born. I wished I would not have been born to prevent all of these, the pain, the despair, the heartbreak. Well, I blamed my dad too. How could he let this happen to his own son. I even hated God. Eventhough I prayed, I was questioning the existence if there even was God. Why would he let a kid go through all that pain? He's just a child, he didn't do anything to deserve this. Why can't he just have a 'normal life?

I moved to the US when I was 16 and was supposed to live with my dad permanently. It was an amazing feeling, finally getting to meet him after for so long. Weird how I still loved him in spite of all the things he did or did not do. I resented them though, him, my stepmom and my little brother seeing the way they lived. All I could think was fuck this, you guys are living real nice while I had to live in a 11' x 12 ' room with my mom and her husband. Having to take a shower with the rest of the tenants, having to get water from a pumping well. It didn't really bother me before but was a bit annoyed by it I guess after moving to the States. So......