VICTIM

I'm getting cranky lately.

Blame it on the the lack of holidays from school work, MA class and a foster grandmother who pretends she cannot walk while in fact she is gaining weight from just sitting and sleeping and eating, all the time.

The first two problems, I don't really care much as I get paid for what I do in school (monthly salary) and also for marking PMR and SPM papers. And I don't mind the MA class as I love to study andto prove to myself that I am not stupid.

But the third? Not so much. My mom is adopted, along with another boy. My foster grandmother's nephew. He should be the rightful person to look after her (amidst her lies and feigning sick). Instead, he got a bitch for a wife and he has total amnesia that he never called back home to inquire whether his foster mother a.k.a auntie is dead or alive. He only came back for like half a day during Raya with his children. I cannot wait to see how his children would treat him one day. Even his real mother gave up on him. His father died and buried before he got back home. That's ho much he cared.

So, my parents and I are stuck with this foster grandmother. It used to be my brother when I was studying for my first degree. Now that I'm posted here and staying home, the burden lies on my mother's and my shoulder. She faked stroke 18 months ago and when we sent her to the hospital, doctors could not find nothing wrong with her. She pretended she could not walk but she could wiggle her toes and move her limbs. She said she fell but for an octogenarian, she would have had broken bones because of the fall, but the X-ray showed nothing. She just acted like she could not work so that my mother would be forced to look after her. Since my family came back here from Seremban when I was 12, we never had any family vacation for 14 years because we have to look after her. Her nephew a.k.a my mom's foster brother, got away scot-free. I cannot wait how his chidlren would treat him when he is old. Both him and his wife.

I always think of what could have happened if I had stayed there in Seremban. If my foster grandfather did not die when I was 12 and we would not have to move all the way here to Kota Bharu to look after my foster grandmother because she was too stubborn not to move there with us. My father had to ask for a transfer here to Kota Bharu. Even then, my father and my mother were forced to see each other only during weekends because my father's army camp is in Tanah Merah which is a 2 hour drive, making it impossible for him to go to and fro everyday to work. But my foster grandmother failed to see the kindness and sacrifice that our family had shown to her. I hate her. I hate her because I could still remember my mother cry during Ramadhan as my father was not together with us to break fast. I hate her for making my mother cry when she told my mother that my mother is a 'garbage child' (anak tong sampah). I hate her because despite going to the hospital because of low-blood pressure (for which my mother could faint at any time if she is too tired), my mother has to put up with my foster grandmother's antics each and every single fucking day. I hate her because I know our life would be different if she had not taken my mother from her biological parents (to this day, my foster grandmother refused to tell my mother the whereabouts of her biological parents). From the bottom of my heart, I hate her with every single vein in my body.

I never tell anybody this stories before. I put it up here because I know nobody is reading and if they read it, they would not comment on it anyway. I blogged about it here because I'm getting sick and tired when people talk about filial piety and how we should take care of the elderly. During Raya and stuff, there'll be news report or special programme where fake ass celebrity would go to old folks' home and feed them and comb their hair and given them 'duit raya' and what not. And they would blast the children for not taking care of their own parents. I agree that some children should not have been born as they bring nothing but heartache for their parents (I got scandalous skeletons in my closet too) but some children are only victims in this little tug of war of who would look after these unwanted old folks. When they were small, what did their parents do? Did their parents look after them when they were children? Or did their parents abandoned them? It is not fair to hear only one side of the story and it is not fair to make judgements of the children if we do not know the history of the old folks and how they treated their kids when they were young.

I'm unfortunate that my real paternal grandparents (whom I know for my parents' stories) died before I could get to know them. If not, they would spoil me, I'm sure. My foster grandfather were a kind man and my mother has fond memories of him. I could still remember him buying me two ice creams instead of one even though I had a cold. I remember him as a soft-spoken person who never rose his voice to others. He was also fond of animals like goats and took care of the goats really well that from the sound of his motorcycle returning home from his work, his goats would come running to see him.

It seems good people, die early. If that is the case, I would have a long way to go and more sins to commit.