I was watching the 10pm show on Channel U, ‘The Perfect Cut’ yesterday, the morale of yesterday’s short stories were about parent-child relationship.

Story 1: A young man wanted to change his face completely because every time he looks at the mirror, he sees his abusive dad’s image.

Dad broke this young man’s toe while hitting him with a broom, smashing his dream of being a ballet dancer. He even cut his ballet shoes into half infront of him.

(these scenes reminded me of the punches from my dad….)

Story 2: A psychiatrist refused to forgive her dad for leaving her and her mom when she was a kid. Now that her dad is dead, she still refused to forgive him. Even though her mom wanted her to go to his grave on his death anniversary, she rejected.

(have I REALLY forgiven my mom….even though now she is dead….)

Throughout the story, questions like….

(with respect to Story 1) “…are you sure even though after a ‘face-off’ plastic surgery, you’ll truly forgive your dad….?”

“….after so many years of lost contact, finally your dad found you and sewed backed the broken ballet shoes….he even humbled himself to say “I’m Sorry” to you….won’t you forgive him?”

The young man’s reply was, “I don’t know….but I know I don’t hate him anymore….”

(what a child wants is only a word of apology….to smoothen the rough feelings in his heart…but that’s something hard for a parent, to swallow his pride to say he’s sorry….)

(with respect to Story 2) “…what’s done can’t be undone…and now that the creator of the hurt is already down to ashes, how then will you forgive him….do you want him to rise up from the grave and say, “I’m Sorry?”…..

….these are questions that’s hard to answer….

I HATE to watch shows that remind me of my family violence, gambling and strained parent-child relationships. I usually switched off the TV or looked away. Because I HATE to be reminded.

For this aspect of my life, I choose to ran away and avoid, I choose NOT to face the tough questions, I choose to bury my messed-up emotions as deep as possible….call me a coward, whatever!

The thought of coming home (a place that’s supposed to be warm and secure) is always heavy hearted. Coming back to a cold steel cage. Coming back to four chilling walls that’s built upon hurt, bruises, blood, screams, tears, fear, anger, hatred…..

My home IS a place I hate to come back to…and ironically I’m still staying in the same four walls, though the colour of the paint is different, the furnitures have changed or rearranged, the members are different, but every corner still reminds me of what happened more than 14 years ago…

A house where ZERO communication is always welcomed. 4 Members in the household, kids hardly talk to parents, and parents hardly talk to each other, sometimes for days, sometimes even weeks….but it’s all good, it’s always preferred.

When there’s communication, there’s a high chance of arguements, then there’ll be a possibility of blows again from my body-builder dad…..and then the peace is broken again…

I saw a book in the bookstores recently, it’s called “A Child Called “it”, and suddenly a thought jumped into me that maybe I could write a book about my childhood, maybe my book could help children to handle better if there’s a gambler in the family, if there’s family violence, broken marriages…..just a sudden thought, just maybe…..

There were so many things, I could have done, but I didn’t know such help was available for my mom, the spark which burned away my family happiness (blame it on my age, blame it on my choice to avoid than to dig deeper into the problem), till the police were involved….till counseling sessions began all too late…

I remember I wrote a letter to both my parents about how I felt, about how I wish it could have been better, about how I thought “peaceful communication” could bring them closer….I wrote, I wrote it all down on 2 pieces of A4 size papers…. did it work? A BIG FAT NO!!!

I could really go on and on about this extreme-childhood….but I would like to stop here…

The lucky part was, my horrible family did not result in me having a phobia towards being someone’s wife  and some kids’ mommy. Thank God!

Many of my friends asked why do I still bother about this issue, now that both my parents are dead, everything is over, isn’t it? My answer is “no”, it’s just the beginning….

Keatkeat started to ask about my parents. He insisted on seeing their pictures, I did show it to him without any hesitation and without any elaboration too. I just passed him the photo album and walked away.

But the time will come…and I can feel it coming really soon…he will ask,

“Do you love your papa and mommy?”

“Do they love you?”

“What do they work as?”

“Did you cry when they die?”

You see,  in my ‘current-happy-almost-perfect’ family, we tell each other we love each other everyday, we hug and kiss each other everyday, we sing, we laugh, we joke, we play as a family everyday.

I CREATED this ‘dream family’ that I am in right now. Whatever that I’ve dreamt of having during my childhood, I MADE IT HAPPENED to this family, to my current family! I wanted to get back all that I’ve lost! It was revenge time for me when my first child was born!

Allan found it hard to adapt to it at first, only during last 2 years, did I see that he has grown to love this kind of family….. Allan didn’t grow up in such a family, in fact, Allan told me that his parents has never mentioned the word ‘Love‘ to any of their children before, but they show their love through their actions; obviously I didn’t grow up in such a family too.

I’ve always wanted my parents to say they love me….but…..(sorry I need a moment…)

So the day will come, when Keatkeat or Binbin decides to ask me all those questions, when I have to face the ‘little-me’ that I’ve hidden in the basement of my heart, completely shut with a thousand stainless steel locks right now….till then I will probably blog about how they reacted to the ugly truth….till then….