Parents around, raised as an orphan

“I hope you won’t get uncomfortable later. My cousin will be accompanied by three of her friends.” I told my friend Malvin, who decided to tag along for my night out with my cousin sister.

“I should be fine. Unless it’s just two of you, and you need to have family private talk time together” he replied as he makes himself comfortable in my car, on our way to Bukit Bintang.

“Nah, it’s just a casual night out.  It’s been a long while since we last saw each other and she’s been nagging me for a night out with her friends.” I told him.

“This cousin of mine is actually my biological sister, the sixth in the family. I'm third. But we had to ‘let her go’ to the more deserving family.  You see, my uncle and aunt, they were married for ten years without offspring.  When they learned that my mother was pregnant with this sister of mine, they asked to have her as their own…”

“Both my parents were strongly against the idea and didn’t even consider the possibilities.  But the repeating dream that my mother had was too disturbing to ignore. She dreamt that an old woman came to her and tried to take her new born child.  She held on with all her might and managed to keep my sister tight in her grasp.  The old woman became very angry and let out a spine chilling curse, “Very well…” said the old woman. “If I can’t have her, neither can you”

“In the end, after intensive consultation with the elders, my parents agreed to let my aunt and uncle raise my sister as their own.” I concluded a brief history of my family tree while driving.

“So how many siblings do you have?” I asked Malvin.

“I’m the only child” he replied.

“Wow. That’s nice. Undivided love and attention from your parents" I suggested.

“Nice? Heheh…” Malvin let out a short chuckle. There was a sense of sadness in his facial expression as he paused for a while.

“I grew up as an orphan.  It wasn’t nice” he explained.

“Your parents…” I tried to guide the conversation, wanting to know more without being too intrusive.

“My grandparents raised me up initially.  When I was very young, my parents had marriage problems.  My mom, she was not a one man woman.  She went out with many men, even after married to my dad. She was not at home most of the time and it was my dad who took care of me.  After a while my dad was unable to manage single parenthood so he asked my grandparents to take care of me.  My parents eventually sought divorce and my mom won custodian rights over me.  Unfortunately, and naturally, she was not fit to be a mother and I continued to be raised by my grandparents.” Malvin started his tale.

“My childhood life was riddled with misery.  Kids at school targeted me because of my broken home.  I was not raised by my parents like everyone else, and my parent’s marriage problem added to the senseless hatred and misunderstanding at school.  Kids at school would wait for me to arrive every morning and rush to beat me up as soon as they saw me.  I stopped going to school after a while. I would travel halfway to school before changing my clothes and spend time away from school. Most of the time I just roamed the streets in my school uniform during school hours. Got caught by the police several times for that. My grandparents realized that they were no longer able to provide me a good childhood due to the constant and unstoppable bullying at school so they sent me to the orphanage.  They wrote a letter to the district office requesting for the transfer and before I knew it, I was at the orphanage.”

“I thought my life would change at the orphanage but it got worse.  We were not taken care of as we were supposed to.  Food was scarce and we sometimes went without anything to eat for dinner. The caretakers there, they stole part of our supplies for their own use.  They even brought large portions of our rations home.”

“Our school pocket money was no better.  We initially received fifty sen each day for tea break at school. After a while we were given meal coupons.  Eventually the coupon system got frozen and we were left with nothing”

“Life at the orphanage was hell.  We were constantly bullied by the care takers.  Even the janitors abused us.  They were lazy so they always told us to do their jobs keeping the orphanage clean.  We were beaten up if we ever tried to object or complain. They were getting paid for not doing their job. Do you know the broom stick?” Malvin asked me.

“Yeah, I know…” I replied.

“I got beaten up with a broom stick several times at the orphanage! Sometimes the broom stick breaks!”

“Wait, you mean the wooden broom stick? Not the bamboo ones right?” I asked.

“Yeah, the wooden ones break against my head!” Malvin confirmed, his hand firm on his head.

“Sometimes the caretakers beat us up with their shoes. You know, the male shoes, with wooden heels. Those heels occasionally land on our heads!” Malvin added.

I was dumb founded.

“Gosh! You had a terrible childhood. I cannot begin to imagine how it was like.  And to be where you are now is just amazing.  Do you know that you could have easily died anytime between then and now? Your life totally ruined by all this treachery? But instead, here you are now, working as a radiographer tutor at a government health institution. How are your friends doing now? Are they as tough as you are?” I asked him.

To be continued…