Truth is, I did have a relatively decent childhood. It wasn't all that bad. I worked at a very young age but it wasn't something that I resented. I took a lot of pride in my capability. I enjoyed teaching piano and tutoring kids in the neighborhood. I was not driven by money but more so by progress of my students. I had one or two students that I never collected money and I was okay with that. My parents bragged about it and to me, I brought them pride.

I was a happy kid. Truth is, we didn't have a lot but I never felt poor. I had the entire church compound to play in. The front yard was so large, I once rode a motorbike around it. I had the hill surrounding the church to climb on. During monsoon season, I would wake up to the gushing waterfall right in the backyard. I would put on my bathing suit and rush out to play in the fresh water coming down from the hill. The pond would overflow and me and my brothers would try to save the goldfish from being washed away. I once spotted a pair of toucan perched on the hilltop right in our backyard. We always had visits from wild monkeys. My mother was a great cook. She took a lot of pride in her cooking and she guarded that with a vengeance. A skill that she was not willing to impart. But that also meant that I had the greatest meals growing up. Meals that I now recreate with my own twist, thanks to the endless online recipes. My parents loved gardening but each stood in the opposing team. My mother would plan and attempt beautify the yard while my dad was all about harvesting from the earth, while disregarding what was there before. He would plop a papaya tree in between my mother's orchid and it absolutely infuriated her. While they bickered over nothing, I remembered being surrounded with all kinds of beautiful plants and tropical fruits. My mother had the most beautiful rose bushes. Her orchids were simply spectacular. My father had the entire orchard to feed us. We had endless supplies of papaya, mangoes and bananas. We had jackfruit and even a durian tree. My all time favorite is the custard apple  I love animals and over the years, we had cats, dogs, rabbits, chickens, duckling, dove, and even a pet monkey. We lived close to the ocean and I love every bit of it. I love the water, the sand, the endless supply of fresh fish, the sea shells, the wind in my hair.

Away from the memories of my mother, there was nothing to cry about. But yet, she was so miserable. I felt almost obligated to be unhappy. Almost felt like a betrayal if I was happy. She was also very angry with God. She would openly tell us that she scolded God for not giving her what she wanted. For not taking care of things. For giving her a useless husband. For years, she griped about how God wouldn't transform him into a better man. She complained about everything he did. She complained that he didn't do anything. She complained that he refused to help her. She complained that he looked like an idiot riding the bike under the hot sun without his shirt on. In my last visit with her, she had the same gripe. She said to me while referring to my dad,  "I don't understand how a person just won't change" and I retorted back quoting directly from Judge Judy - "I don't know - you picked him." She didn't like that. She stopped gripping about my dad for the rest of my visit. I didn't want to hear it. If she was so unhappy, then dump him. Just don't drag us in the mud. She chose to stay with him, so live with it.

Life wasn't bad at all if my mother could only see. She did leave behind a trail of emotional destruction with her years and years of put downs, manipulation, blackmail and control. It was hard to wrap my parents' memories in blankets rainbow now that they are gone. But I chose cling on to the good. I still love what I loved. I love my yard. I love my garden. I love digging dirt with my boy. I love seeing my rottie running with a bone in his mouth. I love stroking the soft hair of my nebelung. I get excited seeing the first bloom from my fruit trees. I love the ocean. I love that I am surrounded by the sea shells I collected over the years. In the midst of the bad, I chose to be surrounded by the good. The good that my parents never knew they had. The plants and flowers, the yard, the ocean, and most of all, a family.