This is in conjunction with Father's Day. A typical family would have their father as the anchor of the family. He would be the one to provide a roof over the head for the family, put food on the table, protect the family from harms, handyman, problems solver, etc. He is the pillar supporting the family and without him, the family could have easily crumbled into pieces.
However not family is lucky enough to have such fathers. Even Barack Obama has got a irresponsible man as his father and he is calling for all fathers to be a responsible man. This is a post about such fathers and fathers to peoples that I know. There are two cases here.
Case 1.
K is my relative. He owns a trucks workshop. Financially he can be considered as rich. He has 5 children and a wife,P, who is a few years younger than him. When his children is still relatively young, the eldest was still in secondary school, i think his wife suspected that K is cheating on her. In order to win her husband back, P tried to slim down. But nothing was confirm and she did not really to slim down a lot. That was in the 90s.
And then some 3-4 years back, P discover about K's mistress. Whats more, they aldy have 2 kids. P went crazy. She cried non-stop and treaten to kill herself. It was so bad that they had to call K's mother and his brothers and their wives to calm her down. That was not the end of it. P went into depression and would sometimes follow her husband around to prevent him from meeting his 'other' family. Till today, things have not improve.
For information, K is actuall not a bad father. He loves his children. He is the one who will make sure the children get a good party when they are 21. His once gave his eldest son 100000, to start a business. His son got cheated in the end, but he never even scold him. He tried his best to provide to his family up till today. But no matter what he did, all his children are on their mother side. His eldest son and daughters especially, hated him the most. The only way they could forgive him is maybe to leave his other family. But how could he? He already has 2 children with his mistress.
Case 2.
My friend, S, was the 2nd daughter in the family of 4 children, with the only son being the youngest. When S was in early secondary school, her family was doing well. They run a coffeeshop. Business was good, each month they could earn a net profit of 7-8K (that was in late 90s and early 2000s). Her mom was the one who did most of the work most of the time, while the children will help out when they are home after school. The father will be there at the shop when he has the time as he also has other business.
When S reaches upper secondary, troubles start to appear in her family. Her father runs into financial troubles. To earn some extra income my fren start to give tuition classes. When she was in Form4, she teaches Form3 students. When she is in F5, she will teach F4 and F3 classes. In lower6, she will teach F3-5 and in upper six she will be teaching F3-6 students. She only teaches one subjects and she is really very very good at it.
S's father got himself and his family into more troubles when he borrows from loan sharks. They even have to sell off their coffeeshop business when she was in F6. Occasionally they got harrassed by loan sharks who will go to their house demanding money from them. S will be the who will chase these loan sharks away. Yes, S is not only smart but she is also very very brave and fierce. By that time the father is very seldom at home. And when he is home, he will sometimes hit their mother. They also found out that their father has another woman outside. Everyone in the family hates the father very much for his behavior and for getting the family into all this troubles. Everyone except S.
These was a very hard time for S. Ever since they sold their coffeeshop business, S is the only one supporting her family by giving tuition classes. She was the pillar in the family. Coping with all these problems at home, all her time spent giving tuition classes and trying to cope with her studies at the same time is not an easy task for anyone.
A few years passed and their life were now a lot more better. Her sisters are all working now. S and her elder sis are married and had their own children. Their father does not stay with them but would visit from time to time. Everytime, S and her elder sister would give him some money to spend though its not much. Others still hates him very much. One day, the father announces that he is now rich again. He had made a few millions from a deal. He told them that he will give their mother one million. However everyone opposes it because this would mean that he will be part of the family again. Although S do not really hate her father but she could not forget what he has done and she does not know if they should forgive their father and accepts him back to the family.
5 comments:
We should not judge ppl too hard. What they did said as much abt them as it is about us ourselves. We could repeat the same mistake, we're all subject pretty much the same human condition. Our tendency to find comfort in the fresh hands of another woman when our current relationship hit the rocks, our poor or reckless judgement all in the zeal to provide the best for our family only to be returned with little understanding and hatred. Sometimes we must learn that the cause of their mistakes are the same fear, greed, misjudgement and insecurities that plagues us all, and we're not that different. Reconciliation and forgiveness is important to leave us at peace with our family, our history and us ourselves.
RYC: Thanks for your comment. The story was inspired by a woman named Neda whose quick death at a gunshot was recorded on video that became viral hit online.
No.
Dan-yel: Yup, its not right judge ppl too hard. But its also impossible for us to not judge others
Jomel: But i have a feeling that my friend S would forgive him but would never want him back in their life permanently. She actually adores her father because she has some good memory of him and for his ability in making lots of money.
I advised her to keep the one million for her father's sake. There is a real possibility that her father would have spent all the money before his time is up
oh.. i will accept the one million if I were her. After all the hardship that she and the family been through, that's the very least. And perhaps forgive him too..
I meant NO to case 1. I can never forgive a father like that.
I did not ask her to take the 1 million for herself or her family. Its for her to keep so that in case his father went broke again, he still have that 1 million.
For me, case 1 is easier to forgive even though its more complicated because of the kids that he has with his mistress. At least the kids grew up in a happy family without much hardship.
I know its the father fault for getting involved with the mistress but its a mistake that cannot be undone.
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