Quiet evening at home

I was shivering and close to tears as I slowly cycled home. I never realised or expected that it would come to this... that I'd be dreading to go home and see my own family.

The four hours or so at uni seemed much too short. Again, woke up this morning to heated exchanges and arguments. To be honest, my dad is terribly ill, not only physically but also mentally. And when he feels like it, he just shouts abuse and threatens to do this and that. This morning it was about my brother's girlfriend, and the fact that she's living at our place without contributing anything. And because she comes from China, my dad has this strong stereotype and deep suspicion that she is like all Chinese people he knows and hears about in the media: theiving, coniving and good-for-nothings.

The funny thing is, a few days ago my dad and the girlfriend were getting alone fine, and he even gave her some money for new year's (a tradition with us). And suddenly she's the "enemy", she's a "Commie", and she's supposed to be trying to "take over" the house. Screaming, shouting, ranting about all these far-fetched conclusions and conspiracy theories, just like a naive child who knows so little about the world, but doesn't want to know any more than what he sees and believes as true. A twisted, conceited and bitter old man, who is so ill physically and mentally he doesn't seem to realise it, but goes from day to day driven by anger and frustrations and sorry addictions.

I was in the middle of it all, trying to talk some sense into my dad. I said time and again, you can't equate Chinese people with the Chinese government; it's racism, pure and simple. Besides, you don't have the right to come between two people in love. I told my dad, he doesn't need to approve of anything, but he doesn't have to treat people like dirt and scum even though they have done nothing wrong to him. And really, my brother's girlfriend has done nothing to my dad, but my dad just goes on ranting and raving about conspiracy theories and Commies. I try and try, trying to make him open his eyes, open his mind, but he serious is too blind and narrowminded beyond hope. In the end, I contacted the girlfriend and told her it's best not to be here for the next week or so while my dad is around. By midday, she moved her things out.

Dad thinks he won, but in fact he lost much more. He dares not to go up to my brother and the girlfriend to confront them about all this, and thinks just by treating people like dirt they'll cave in and move away. Of course, my brother got furious and left with his girlfriend. Later in the afternoon, my brother called me while I was studying. One of the first things he said was to warn me of a "confrontation". In the half an hour or so we spoke, he told me several times he has reached the end of his "tolerance level", and will "soon enough" confront dad if dad "goes too far".

I stood outside the library, and shook and felt my heart sink and sigh, as I heard my brother rant and rave about my dad, and warning of the "havoc to come"... I could have burst into tears again there and then. I pleaded to my brother, trying to calm his temper and tried to explain why dad is so angry and upset. All the years of no contact and no communication resulted in a lot of misunderstanding and distrust, and suddenly put two equally subborn, and equally short-tempered people who are so much alike in so many ways together, it's a war waiting to break out. Again, I was in the middle of it all, pleading, putting in a good word for the other person, while trying to appeal to reason and understanding. I tried to appeal to compassion, hoping that my brother could see two sides of the story instead of just the side tainted with hatred and anger. I reminded him that though dad is a terrible dad and has hurt us so many times, he did provide us with a good education and a good life. And, though I hate to say or think it, I told my brother that the way my dad goes on living like this, living in utter denial, shrouded in deep suffering and greed, he wouldn't have much longer... I pleaded for mercy, begged my brother to think of other people, to think of mum's fragile health that cannot stand to bear more screaming and fighting... I told him I could wish for nothing else but that everyone live in peace and happiness. In the end, my brother just said he couldn't promise anything. If confrontation comes, it will come.

I dragged myself home, dreading to face my family, and wishing I could go somewhere else, and be with people who don't shout and harbour so much hatred and anger...

The house was empty and darkening when I arrived around six. I set out to make dinner, thinking they'd all come home to eat. Half an hour later, mum rang the doorbell, and she was the only one who came home. Brother definitely won't come home after what happened this morning, and dad made the lame excuse that he doesn't want to be around this "mess", so disappeared off to his beloved casino again.

Mum and I sat down together to have dinner... no fighting, no anger, no hatred. Just my mum and me (and the sleeping cat), sharing, telling stories, and trying to re-capture all the happy and sad things that have happened in each other's lives in the last year or so while apart.

I listened to her attentively, pouring the occassional tea into her cup whenever it was empty. She talked about living with dad, about how they live such estranged and separate lives, about how they don't talk much, about dad's selfishness and greed, about dad's ailing health, and about how dad would suddenly throw tantrum over the smallest and most trivial things... More and more I was reminded of my life here with my brother, and more and more I was reminded of the saying "like father, like son".

I sat listening to my mum, allowing her to pour out the emotions and bottled up frustrations and hoping by 'emptying' on me, she would feel better, lighter and happier. She deserves to be happy, to be free from a raving mad man, and deserves the peace and quiet to recover from her illness... She told me in detail about the operations she had undergone, about those painful chemo-treatments, about the loneliness she feels at times because I'm so far, far away... I watched her closely, noticing the wrinkles that have formed on her face, around her eyes and on her hands, noticing how the hairlets around her ears have turned gray....

Emotional moments of bonding and sharing, just between my mum and me. Smiles, little tears, laughs and sighs we shared, and like so many times before we connected so deeply I could feel the mutual caring and love all around us. A far, far world away from the shouting and confrontations, and vain attempts to appeal to peace and understanding.

But deep down, I fear that that world far, far away may only be too near...

Fight...

Fight, fight, fight...
Constant war, constant anger, constant ill feelings towards one another.

I am silently and lonelily crying inside....

Longing...

I sit and stare out the window. I should be doing work, should be trying to finish off my deadlines, but I can’t. I can’t concentrate and can’t read anything without the angry voices and disgusted faces echoing in my mind.
Once again, I feel so lost, such disappointment and disbelief at the surrealness of it all, the best way to describe it is feeling ‘numb’. They say if you get hurt time and time again, you become numb. Maybe this is what I’m feeling now.

The family you grew up with, the family you had hoped and prayed and wished at every single birthday would one day be peaceful and happy, fighting and breaking again and again before your eyes… Love, understanding, compassion and respect… so little there is to speak of. Instead, anger, suspicion, soiled memories and ill-wishes seem to dominate and triumph. I sit here, defeated and beaten, exhausted and dreading to fight another battle against the uneasiness and fakeness of it all.

I sit here and stare out the window, wondering whether and when I can love, and be loved back…

A gamble

Almost 1am, and like usual trying to recollect my thoughts and experiences of the day just before going to sleep. Dad came through the door, back from his nightly visit to the casino.

It’s one of his terrible habits, a thing I absolutely loathe about him. In all the years he was working here since I was around 8 or so, he probably spent more time at Black Jack tables than at home. I remember one scene very vividly many many years back… My dad had come home for dinner, and after dinner rushed me upstairs to do my homework. But I heard the car door slam shut moments later. I ran toward the window, and saw the car pull away… Another time, I was perhaps just ten or so, he came home at two or three in the morning with the taxi. He had no money to pay for it, and rang the doorbell. I was the only one to go open it, because mum was of course upset… I was the one who dug into the piggy bank to pay for the taxi fare…

I got extremely upset a few years ago when he came to visit me while I was still in high school, and sarcastically I asked him: "Are you here to see me, or see the people at the casino?" He didn’t say anything. But after that he never visited for several years.

That was a few years ago. And though people change, circumstances change, old habits die hard. Before he arrived, I had the feeling that he would soon get back into his old habit again, but I still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. But like always, dad only disappointments. After arriving a few days ago, the very next day he just disappeared again. At least it was better than the last time he visited, when he ‘disappeared’ within hours of arriving.

Of course everyone knows where he goes. But like always he’d come home late with stupid excuses like he didn’t bring his glasses and so caught the wrong bus. I’d always ask him how his day has been and where he’d been when he comes home, and every time it’s vague answers like "just here and there" or "just out and about". Two days ago he made the most lamest lie that he went to Amsterdam to see his old office. But the public transport ticket he put on the table clearly revealed where he did go, and it was no where near Amsterdam, but more like Casinoland. Even on my birthday, after a quick lunch which seemed more like a formality than a real desire to be there, he stretched his arms and said he’d like to ‘go walk around a bit’ to walk off the full stomach. The rest of us wanted to go into the countryside, but dad said we could just drop him off in front of the casino. That night, he didn’t even come home for dinner, and wasn’t even there when I blew out the candles on my cake… Disappointment and hurting, time and again.

I think the lies and attempts to ‘cover up’ his trail hurts most. If he wants to go, just say so, but why hide and lie and pretend as if nobody knows and as if nobody should know, when in fact everyone knows!? It’s an addiction, and he doesn’t realise it. Worse still, I am concerned for his health and wellbeing when he spends all this time there. In his very fragile state of health, he really can’t get too tired and have too little sleep… but he doesn’t seem to care, doesn’t seem to give a damn about himself or what other people think.

He is a good dad, in the sense he provided and continues to provide me (us) with everything I (we) could ever need, and more. He never hit me, or overly scolded me or got angry at me, at least not compared to the clashes he and my brother have been having since as long as I can remember. But dad is a lousy father-figure, and even worse of a husband, for he is never around and knows only to share his presence and concern for the rest of the family with money and more money. Dad doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to care about the details of our lives, much less about how we feel and how we’ve been hurt so often by his lies and absence. And in the last few years he has become more and more distant, like a stranger who just happens to live at home, but gets into arguments with almost everyone about the most trivial and petty things. I am the only one he can talk to, and I am the only one who listens, and who he listens to… but more and more I feel this unbearable strain on my mind when I have to try placate his temperaments and distrust toward the rest of us, and try to step in every single time when an argument is about to explode.

I’m not sure how much longer I can take this, before I explode.

Family matters

Like a strange, foreign dream... one you could be shocked and disappointed to wake from at anytime.

I woke up this morning, to that disappointment and shock. One day after my birthday. Just one day... Like I feared, the peace and reconciliation made in the last few days were a sham, fragile and easily broken into thousands of pieces that can cut people deeply and hurt so bad.

Only last night, we were sitting around and talking in a calm manner about the future of this family. Dad promised that he would pass the deeds of the house we’re living in to me and my brother. We had all sat down together with financial advisers and notaries to draft up the plans in a way that would save a lot of taxes, and place the burden of the mortgage on my brother, so that my parents could focus on their pension plans.

Suddenly this morning, dad woke up in a terrible mood and began lashing out at everyone. Such hatred, such anger! Such intolerance and suspicion of everyone and every thing! Now he wants to have nothing to do with what we had talked about, saying that he trusts no one, and believes we’re all involved in a conspiracy against him. Most of all, he despises the fact that my brother’s girlfriend is living with us, and has this deep-seated and twisted idea that she is out to benefit from our assets. A ‘thieving rat’ he called her. Money, money, money… that’s what it’s all about. Money and how to get more of it, and how to protect it as much as possible so you can accumulate more and more. Nothing else seems to matter, especially not how other people feel, or the promises made or false hopes worked up. The fact that my brother and girlfriend have been together for almost two years and have plans to settle down together doesn’t matter. She’s conniving and plotting, eating and living for free, so she must be terrible. What a simple and tainted mind my dad has!

It’s all about money, all about property, all about distrust and conspiracies and misunderstandings. That’s all dad sees. He doesn’t see things as they are, just how it will benefit him or hurt him, and in his mind he thinks we’re all trying to cheat him. And he blames everyone, accuses everyone of the most ridiculous things.

He called me ‘soft’, and has this fear I would just give away my share of the house to my brother’s girlfriend for no reason. Earlier I told him about my plans to move out of the house as soon as I’m financially independent, and dad interpreted it to be me thoughtlessly abandoning my rights at home. I tried to explain to him that I can’t possibly live at home all my life, but he called me stupid and accused me of being blind of certain people trying to take advantage of me. Even the fact that I help my single-mum friend now and then came up in his tirade, because helping a single mother and baby “has no benefit”. Suddenly, being kind and being honest and treating everyone with courtesy and respect is a sin. I really can’t understand what kind of twisted world and sick ideas go around in his head…

I told him many, many times when he was diagnosed with liver cancer that sometimes in life it’s best to live happily and live well, and that everything else doesn’t really matter much when you leave this world. But he doesn’t listen, and still clings onto his ideas and misconceptions, anger and deep distrust of people like they matter more than anything else in the world. It’s been a year since I last saw him, and I was surprised how he has aged. His hair has drastically whitened on his head, his face become so haggered and wrinkled. Walking just a little bit makes him exhausted, and every few hours he needs medication to control his blood sugar levels. When you come to this stage in life, when you don’t know when you will ‘go’, why not live everyday with hope and with a light heart of compassion and kindness? Why go on being angry, having all this distrust and hatred bottled up deep inside, and cling onto money, money, money? How ill my dad is, how cold and heartless he is, that giving others the benefit of the doubt is such is not even possible any more… everything tainted with thoughts of money, money, money, benefit, profit and for me, me, me!

Whatever I try to say to him, however I try to smooth things out between people, however I try to appeal to common sense and emotions, it’s like he is resistant to my words. To me, it’s not really the money or the rights to the house that I care about. Of course dad has the right to decided where and to who his money goes… but why tear down the trust and good-will that has built over the past few days over nothing? Such a petty mind, a mind full of bad thoughts and bad karma…

I told him all I wanted is for people to get along peacefully and live happily without anger, without hatred. I told him how he has hurt and disappointed me, time and time again. He just walked away and closed the door behind him. As if closing the door can shut away all the trouble and grief he’s caused me by his sudden change of mind. As if closing the door can shut away the pain he has caused by his angry words and terrible temper…

I sat at the breakfast table, wondering what happened overnight that changed everything. I felt so bitter…so frustrated… I’m not angry at him, but just very, very disappointed. How can someone who is supposed to be so close be so distant? How can a loved one, your own dad, hurt and disappoint you time and time again?

What happened to my birthday wishes for everyone to get along peacefully and happily as I blew out the candles on the cake last night? What happened to those illusory hopes and promises of a better future together as a family and all those moments of sharing and bonding in the past few days?

Dead dreams. Broken hopes.

I buried my face in my hands, rubbed my sore eyes and aching head. Why…why this nightmare…?

Birthday

I received a lot of calls, and messages, and emails and ecards from friends and colleagues. It was touching to receive so many expressions and wishes. To be honest, at times I felt a little flustered and wondered what I ever did to deserve the wishes and gestures from so many people.

Actually, nobody in the family remembered it was my birthday, until my mum saw the date this morning and realised what day it was. It’s not that I love to be noticed and to be the centre of attention, but it’s nice to feel just a little special, and as if you could do anything you want because it's your birthday, if only for one day in a year. After realising it was my birthday, they secretly bought a cake while I was out, and hid it until late in the evening.

I laughed the moment I saw the big ‘24’ candles on the cake, and joked that they were really planning ahead. To me it didn’t really matter that they didn’t remember or got the year wrong, but, as they say, it’s really the thought that counts.

To everyone who wrote to me offering support when I was upset, and offering me the best of wishes for my birthday, thank you.

I’m sorry that I can’t write back personally to thank you at the moment… trying to spend as much time as possible with my parents while they’re still here, tonnes of school work to be done and with the part time job(s), I really don’t have much time to answer emails.

But I want you to know, I really appreciate every single word and the time everyone one of you took to remember me, and make me feel special.

Thank you! :)

21 February 1984

I was born.

After fighting, there is peace.

Or at least a period of peace.

It's been four days since that big outburst of emotions last Friday, and overall it's been relatively calm. New year's eve (Saturday) we managed to sit down at the table as a family and share a proper meal together. There was good food, wine and conversation. No finger pointing, no swearing, no shouting. Mum said how happy she was that we could finally sit down together and have a proper meal together. Dad, in a rare expression of his feelings, told us how proud he was of us (the children) and our achievements. Brother talked together, mostly about the car that he wanted, spurred by my dad, who promised to cover half of the costs. Between the clinking of our glasses, we wished each other success and wellbeing. I silently wished everyone peace and happiness.

We even managed to talk about some more 'sensitive' issues... like the uncertain future, and how to deal with the certain property and assets, especially due to the ill-health of both my parents. Before, dad would always stubbornly refuse to touch on the subject, but this time he softened, and we all managed to sit down with a family lawyer just yesterday and discuss things in a civilised manner. All this talk of money and property seems so cold and so 'de-personalising', but it's something that needs to be done sooner or later.

And for the first time in a long time, we took a trip together into the countryside the other day, smiling, laughing and sharing. Precious times, priceless times. Of course it wasn't all easy, and at times I needed to jump in and 'direct' the conversation to avoid confrontations and outbursts. Overall, everyone seems happy, and this seems like the beginning of something new, something beautiful, something I had longed for for so long.

Yet, beneath the smiles, the nice exchange of words and well-meaningness of it all, I feel like it's all so surreal. Still numb from the explosive exchange of words a few days ago, it's as if a part of me is half expecting something to go wrong, or perhaps even hoping that something would go wrong just to prove right that this family is indeed hopeless. And all the time I feel so tired, so exhausted from just being around them and having to 'intervene' and reconcile potential words that might just break everything down again.

Like a strange, foreign dream... one you could be shocked and disappointed to wake from at anytime.