Sunday, April 19, 2009

My father and I - quite an uncomfortable topic, but...

Just began to recall a conversation with Wan Teng, Kenny and I on our way out of the school gate. I forgot what we were talking about, but it somehow strayed into me talking about my father. Definitely not a person I'm comfortable talking about...

As we talked, maybe I seemed a lot like a materialistic jerk or something, but the fact that my father doesn't bring money home from work should be able to tell us something - he isn't putting any effort into the family at all. Surely any taxi driver should be able to contribute something to the family, but no. I haven't been receiving pocket money from him since like a couple of months ago. Surviving on just $10 a week is almost impossible nowadays - and apparently he doesn't realise that. Any more money off from him is like asking for a miracle to happen.

Living in an area next to the marketplace isn't simple either. And my neighbour's father is also a taxi driver. However, his son still gets enough to get by - around $20-30 a week, the last time I heard. Life sure is unfair sometimes, so you've gotta grit your teeth through whatever you do...

My own pocket money aside, the last time I heard, my mom only gets $20 a day off from him, and that's just for family expenses. Without my mom having to work, I think we'll starve.

Assuming that he only gets enough from his rounds to pay off the taxi rent due to some "rubbish-ed" reason, he should be changing jobs already, but every once in a while I see him with a new handphone or some other weird gadget, so he should be quite well off. In fact, I did see what he'd pull out - a stack of cash, and he says it's for the taxi rent so we cannot touch it. Nice excuse, torn down hard when I saw him take out money out of the same stack for Mom's allowance.

In fact, I once contemplated taking some out of that stack that appears every now and then just to supplement my allowance, but then that'd be stealing from my own family. I don't want this kind of money. I want legitimate cash. I just want enough to get by in school. Fortunately, my grandparents decided quite some time ago to offer to give me pocket money every now and then, so I can get by, with some extra money for emergencies.

Money aside, I don't even see him much of the time. Only when I go home on Sundays after church service do I see him, and even then it's just for a few hours and he's back to running his rounds. I hardly have time to talk to him. Making matters worse, because my entire family is non-Christian and he being strongly anti-Christian, we hardly ever talk anymore ever since I first attended church.

Not too long ago, he chased out our long-time tenant whose rental made life easier for family expenses while he was still with us. Add all of this on to the fact that my father has a history of owing my grandparents, uncles and aunts a large sum of money used to clear his gambling debts. He's real lucky my mom still stuck to him after all these years. Needless to say I don't like my own father, but what can I do? He's still my father.

I used to hear one of my uncles who's very close to my father say this about him: "This piece of cow dung, you can do without, seriously. The real victim is the rose stuck to it. That's why you're here - to support your mom when you have the ability to."

And so, that's what I'm doing. Or at least, that's what I think I'm going to do.

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