Story Time: Poverty (Cont...)

While everything in my father and mothers life in the hospital has never been easy as it came to a point when mom would have to beg for food to the nurses and asked to give her medicine for my father my life together with my siblings had also been a struggle in my grandma and grandpas house.

I remembered when we were asked to kneel down the floor with salt. Then we are asked to spread our arms while we hold a glass of water and if it slips my grandma would then beat us with a rod. While my grandpa is even worse. We have to make sure we are at home on time and did the household chores or else everyone would get beaten by a buckle.

This all happened without the knowledge of our beloved parents that includes my 2 and 3 years old siblings as well. It was hard but we can't do anything. There are also 3 cousins with us who are living with my folks because my mothers brother is a drunkard.

When my father went out of the hospital our life became more miserable because he can't manage to even lift a pale of water without running out of breath. He said he had an asthma but whats weird is the doctor could not find any issues on his lungs. Instead he was informed that asthma may have developed because he took medicines for asthma when not necessary and thats because what my grandma advise. Since we can't afford to go to a doctor and have ourselves check then everytime someone from the family got sick then we would just buy over-the-counter drugs.

We suffered more of this poverty and got mocked by people who see us as a hassle to them because we always ask for help and/or favor to lend some cash because they know that we can't pay. Which is true. We have to remove the word,"shy" from our system because that won't help us survive.

It came to a point that no one would help us anymore but good thing my mom got hired to one of our far relatives. Her task is like of a caregiver. She has to take care her old aunt who got bedridden.

For 2 years, my father stopped working and my mom had to be the one to work for us.

But then, as my father stayed at home got bored and joined those guys on our neighborhood who are drunkards and gambler. He got addicted to gambling and would reason out he is only doing this to have fun because he can't understand where his life is leading.

But then came to a point when my mom got fed up and asked tried to knock my father back to his senses. Despite the daily arguments we still continue to live as a family.

One day, my father decided to try borrow my uncle's side car. He will use it starting 5pm to 12 mid or so in order for my uncle to use it during morning. So he would be a driver and will just roam around our barangay so to see if he could have a passenger.

Our life became a bit better by that time. Since my father can earn daily and can buy his maintenance medicine and didn't got any asthma attack.

Life always has its ups and downs as what others would tell me but for us, it has always been DOWN.

For couple of months we had the same set up og our parents. My mom would work during day time til 6pm. Father will fetch her from work and send her home then go back to look for passengers til midnight or dawn then sleep in the morning while me l, I would have to do all the things that they have missed that includes takin care of my siblings, household chores and even cooking.

It was tiring as I was still 11 years old and instead of me enjoying my childhood life I was bombarded with a lot of things at such a young age. I was so affected that there are cases I get envious with my neighbor as they get to go out and play and they are well off.

But one tragic night happened. Something we never really expected...

To be continued....

It seems like this story is way too long! I had to stop here. Will try to do my best to finish it on the third article. Thank you guys for reading! Have a great day! It seems like its never a short story after all! HAHA!