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If I have the power to turn back time the one thing that I would like to change was to stop my mother from giving birth to me. I know that giving birth to me was the start of her misfortune in life and because of me my siblings also had to come to this world to bear the same thing. My grandmother used to say that my mother was a smart lady. She even went to an international school. After she had graduated from school, while waiting for her university application, she went to work as a part-time waitress at a restaurant. I could not remember the name of the restaurant that my grandmother had told me about, but I remember that she said it was a restaurant that served Western food in Georgetown, Penang. According to her, that restaurant does not exist anymore.
My mother met my father while she was working at a restaurant. He also works there as a chef assistant. My mother was 17 years old at that time while my father was in his mid-20s. My grandmother did not know the details of how their love bloomed but as a result of their relationship, my mother got pregnant out of wedlock. My mother got pregnant with me at the age of 17 years old. While she was underage. Her dream of going to university was shattered.
My grandmother used to say that my mother used to be the pride of the family since she excelled so well in school more than her older brother and older sister at that time had ever done, but she was also the one who tarnished the family name so well than anyone in the family ever did. Hearing that I can almost imagine the pain that my mother went through from the people surrounding her have made her go through during her most vulnerable time. I did not like that. I don’t want her to face that kind of pain.
My mother was forbidden from aborting me so upon that, she and my father were forced to get married even though they had known each other in such a short time. My mother was forced to do that to avoid the family being humiliated. I refused to let my mother give birth without a husband on her side. My mother had said, her wedding was her saddest day. Her father refused to be there because he was embarrassed while her mother had to pawn most of her gold to make sure the wedding went through well. My father’s family refused to be there at the wedding. The pain on her face when she told me that made me think that a wonderful woman like her did not deserve to go through all of the pain just because of a small mistake that could have been taken care of if only my grandmother and grandfather had given her a choice.
My mother gave birth to me when she was 18 years old. I couldn’t take my father’s name as my last name because of my mother’s pregnancy status. My grandmother had said that it was embarrassing when the villagers used to ask why my mother gave birth so early when it was not long after she got married. If my grandmother had felt that embarrassed, what was inside my mother’s teenage brain at that time?
After giving birth to me was the start of her misfortune in life. She was stuck with a man who was supposed to be her temporary love that she only knew in such a short time. My mother said after I turned one year old, my grandmother did not let her and my father stay in the family house anymore. So they have to rent an old small house at Teluk Kumbar, Penang that costs RM 300 per month. I can remember the house vaguely since my mother stayed there until I was four years old. The house was made up of half bricks and half wood. There was a big mango tree in front of the house. The mango there was extremely sweet. My mother always plucks the mangoes to distribute them among my relatives even though most of them treat her like rubbish. According to my mother, it was very hard for her at that time. She had to deal with working shift hours since she works as a factory operator while my father works only as a fisherman. Their pay was not enough to cover the three of our needs and she had to send me to a babysitter too. My mother sometimes had to starve herself to make sure all of my needs were enough.
My mother’s misfortune continued when she found out that my father was a drug addict after she gave birth to my younger brother, Faiz who is their second child. He started asking for money from my mother. If my mother did not give it to him, he would start beating her. He becomes abusive. I remember vaguely when I was three or four years old seeing my father punching and kicking my mother. I remember seeing how my father took money from my mother’s small wallet while she was sleeping. When she wakes up I can see her disappointed face when she checks her wallet. I was too young at that time to understand anything but I remember when the three of us had to eat instant noodles on that day.
Faiz had to grow up earlier than he was supposed to. After the birth of our younger sister, Nadia who is my parents’ third child, he was given the task to take care of her while I was sent to stay with my grandmother right after my mother found out she was pregnant. My grandmother offered since she saw there were lots of things that my mother needed to take care of. Due to my father’s addiction, taking care of a baby was hard since he had to go out to find his supplies. My mother has to work while my father stops going to the sea. According to my mother, Faiz who was two years old at that time was given the responsibility to take care of my sister while my father went out. I remember once I came to visit and saw his small hand restlessly swinging the baby cradle to make sure that Nadia wouldn’t wake up from her sleep. My grandmother was so angry at that time because my father left a baby in the hand of a two-year-old alone in a house with no supervision but things kept going as usual. Faiz lost his childhood bearing responsibilities that weren’t even his.
As a child, I saw Faiz had been craving lots of things but they never voice it out. He knows how money was tight for us. He knows that our father always beat our mother because of money so he never asks. I remember seeing his face looking longingly at the toys that were hanging at supermarkets. I remember during Eid Mubarak while other kids had been new clothes, he had to wear Baju Melayu which was made up of old Baju Kurung my mother spent the little time that she had to sew it for him. But he wears it with pride but deep down I know how he was comparing his clothes with the other. He even voiced it out to me once on how cool the other boys Baju Melayu. It hurt me so much to remember that a child had to go through this especially if that child was precious to me.
My mother once told me that she did not realize that she was pregnant with our last sister until her tummy started showing. She went through the pregnancy. On the day she was giving birth, it was raining. My parents couldn’t call the ambulance because it was expensive. My father couldn’t ride his motorcycle because it was broken so he hurriedly found an umbrella and started walking to one of my mother’s uncles in the hope that they could drive my mother to the hospital. What broke my heart was when my mother told me that her uncle refused to drive my mother to the hospital because he was afraid that my mother would dirty his car. My father had to beg for help from the cars passing by. Luckily, there are still humans who are kind even though they are not related by blood.
After the birth youngest, Tasha, my grandmother asked my mother to move to the house next to her. The house belongs to my grandmother so my mother can stay there for free. We grew up there. Everything was lacking especially after my father got arrested by the police. There was nobody to babysit my siblings and my grandmother refused to do so since she only agreed to take care of me. All of my siblings had to fend for themselves when my mother went to work. I remember once they were waiting for my mother to come back from work when the sun was setting down. When they saw the vivid image of my mother walking back from work, they would run toward her complaining about how hungry they were and how their grandmother had cooked some nice food but did not give it to them. My mother’s face would always contort in pain and she would cook instant noodles for their dinner.
The situation gets worse when all of us start going to school. The fees, books, uniforms, etc were too expensive. The cost for books per person was RM200 and three of the four of us were starting school already. My mother’s pay per month was only RM900 at that time so it was not affordable for her. Some of us get punished because we couldn’t buy books yet. Our uniforms were a hand down from the people around us. My mother said it was hurting her pride as a mother for not being able to provide for our education since she wants all of her children to succeed.
When I was 10 years old my father came back. His time in lock-up was up. My mother’s misery adds up again. We have to watch our mother get abused once more and this time our youngest had to see it too. He forced my mother to go and steal with him so that he could gain money to buy drugs and he promised that he would give us some money for our food in return. As a result, my mother and he got into a big accident running away from the police. Luckily the police let them go. The accident only left him with a broken arm while my mother couldn’t walk normally anymore. She couldn’t stand for far too long and walk too fast. She had to stop working as a factory worker while my father ran away to avoid bearing the responsibilities of all the mistakes that he had committed.
My mother started selling traditional Malay sweets and thank god her business did well. Things started to get better for us. Even if we were starting to get financially stable at that time my mother’s misery did not end there because my father came back four years later. The abuse continues mentally because he is afraid of Faiz who now has three martial arts skills in his hand.
As the three of us minus my youngest sister started getting in our teenage years, we started rebelling. We start to gain back the fun that we lost due to the struggle of life during our childhood. My brother, Faiz started fighting. Got arrested twice, once due to drug possession and once for beating people that almost caused serious harm. He got expelled from school and also failed his Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM).
Nadia refuses to go to school so that she can have fun with her friends. In return, she got expelled from school and left with no education. Now she can’t even find a proper job at the age of 18 years old because no employer wants to hire a no-education employee.
I got expelled from school twice. Once for making trouble too much at school that the teacher got sick of my antics so I was expelled. On the second time, I was expelled because I wanted to have fun with my friends like hanging out, smoking, and many more so I stopped going to school. My mother was so shocked when she got the letter that stated I was expelled for the second time that she cried so much. She called the three of us and started asking what she did wrong in her life and all of us had turned out like that. Faiz and Nadia start blaming her for the childhood that they lost while I remain quiet and start questioning myself. If only my mother didn’t continue her pregnancy when she was having me, all of this wouldn’t happen. To soothe her pain I went back to school, finished it, and started applying for university so that I could get away from the mess called family. Imagine how relieved I was when my application got accepted.
Faiz now had turned into an angry man. He starts blaming things from the past that had happened that he turned out like he is now. My mother always cries when that happens. Nadia had gotten better when it came to her attitude but she was struggling to find ways in her life since she has no educational background. Tasya starts working after school so that she can get her daily needs because she knows that my mother is dealing a lot right now with the presence of my father. My mother is still struggling with lots of things. My father who always begged for money from her or stole from her, my father who always mentally abused her, Faiz who blamed her for everything, the pain of watching her children struggling in life, the pain of relatives insulting her because she was poor and the pain of being rejected by her own family due to her past mistakes. I did not blame my siblings for rebelling. It was not their fault. They were just angry with the things that have gone through all their lives so they were trying to make up for everything but ended up straying due to the lack of positive teaching in their lives. All their life they have watched my mother getting abused and they also face the same things at some points. They were just trying to cope with everything. But they should not blame my mother for everything just like how they lost their childhood, my mother also lost her teenage years. She was forced to be mature when she was supposed to be living her life and building a successful career. I can see the regrets in her eyes every time she sees her old friends who are now successful in their lives. It was not my mother’s fault. It was mine for gracing this earth/
If I have the power to turn back time and be there at a certain time, I want to be at the time when my mother found that she was carrying me. I know it is wrong for me to think like this because I am rejecting the power of my creator but I can’t help it. Every human always thinks like that. They always wonder what would happen if some things in the past did not happen would it change the future for the better?
If I got the chance to be there in the past, I want to tell my mother that it was okay to get rid of me. I want her to stop listening to her family’s perception of how it is forbidden to abort a baby because it was not them who was carrying it at that time it was my mother. I would rather not be born in this world if I knew that my birth was the beginning of other people’s suffering. My mother did not get married to my father out of love. She got married to him because she was carrying me at that time. I want to be there in the past to persuade her to get rid of me and pursue her education at university so that she can have a better life. And I will tell her that I would always love her even if I wasn’t born in this world so just do what is best for her.
I also want to scold my grandmother for caring about social perception. Stop forcing her teen daughter to get married at such a young age. Stop caring about pride because she is sacrificing her daughter’s future in the name of dignity. I want to scream in her face that her daughter is a human who has a choice and should be able to use her rights freely. She is just a human who makes mistakes all the time and should be able to have the chance to fix it all.
I will also slap my father. How dare he take advantage of an underage girl. My mother was underage while he was already in his mid-20s. It is wrong for an adult to be sexually attracted and get involved with a young teen. If I do that maybe that will knock some sense into him so that he will be on my mother’s side and agree to abort me.
If I manage to do all that, I am sure that my mother will have a better future. She can avoid getting into an abusive marriage. She can pursue her higher education and get a better life where she has a successful career. She will live a life where she doesn’t have to drown in her tears while nursing her bruises and pain while thinking about what can she feed her babies tomorrow. She will find a good man who deserves a powerful woman like her. A man who will cherish and shower her with love instead of pain. She can continue being the pride of the family. Her relatives won’t insult her, instead, they will shower her with praise.
If my mother hadn’t kept me, my siblings wouldn’t have been born in this world. They wouldn’t have to know how cruel life is. Faiz, Nadia, and Tasya wouldn’t have to lose their childhood. Instead, the four of us will have fun watching our supposed mother living her life fully. We wouldn’t have to suffer. All of us including our mother can avoid suffering.
It is not within my intention to question God’s power because I believe that everything that happens, happens for a reason. But still, I can’t help hoping for a better life. If my mother didn’t give birth to me, all of this misfortune can be avoided. Forgive me, God, because I have sinned for questioning the things that you have prepared for me in my writings. My life now is so hard. My mother is drowning in tears every day, my siblings are straying from the right path and my father is like a living corpse. So as a human when bad things happen I always hope for the better.
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