Taking care of myself at 16

My life took quite a drastic turn one fine day when I came home from school to find my mother sprawled still on the floor. I remembered that day as I was so worried, but relieved to find she was still breathing, thank God, only with swollen eyes from too much crying and looked very very sad.

I was still very worried and asked her what was wrong and please tell me, then I was told that our dad had left. My mind was racing with thousands of questions what she meant by "left", anyway, to cut a long long story short, apparently, that was the day my dad left Ipoh secretly to find a job elsewhere in Sabah as we were pretty hit hard by the 80s recession. He had left secretly because he knew that my mom wouldn't approve if he asked her to discuss about it.

My brothers were going on to tertiary education and my dad hadn't been receiving any salary for months. Both of them turned to pretty bad habits eventually as they had too much free time in their hands and the pressure was building up. I really have to give it to my dad for being our hero, the responsible father to face it up and find a job elsewhere to feed his family of 5.

It was also the day I suddenly had to mature overnight and took it in my stride to take care of my mom myself. Mom eventually stood back up and said since my dad was so responsible, she would also do her part.

And she went on a hunt to look for a stay-in domestic helper job in Ipoh, with the criteria that she could bring me along to stay with her. Mother and daughter, just the 2 of us to help take care of each other.

The first job she took up, was a babysitting job. The pay was good, unbelievably very good, and the employer agreed to have us both in. We wondered where the catch was. Apparently, we soon were to find out.

On our first day (not even a night!), as we lug our luggage into our room, the new young mother to the little infant stayed with us in the room. We were NOT encouraged to go outside of the room and we wondered why. All those questions in our heads, can you imagine? Pretty drama, if you would allow me to say.

I can only vividly remember the 4 of us stayed in the room for like hours, which seemed like eternity and were not told of WHY we can't go out of the room! Soon after, we heard loud banging noises coming from right OUTSIDE our door! and a guy shouting, vulgar or not, I can't recall but that definitely scared the shit out of both my mom and I!

The young mother started to shiver and held on to her baby and my mom and I looked at each other wondering what the shit was happening and NO WONDER why noone wanted this scary shit job! Soon after, we got an explanation alright.

Apparently, this guy shouting outside was the young girl's brother and he didn't like his sister giving pre-marriage birth (I think) and he was threatening to kill her and the baby (or am I dramatizing it a bit? aiyah.. it's something like that la, ok?)

Then this young girl with baby asked us to stay, trying to convince us that this only happens at that time of the day as he comes home back from school and he would be alright when his fierce dad is back. MY GAWD! Of course, we fled right away! And that was our very dramatic episode of our first adventure in the once employed as "STAY IN DOMESTIC MAID WITH HAWT YOUNG DOTTER (that's me, btw)" in the late 80s.

She found another job very soon after and I followed her again. This time no crying babies, banging doors and crazy guy shouting.

The bungalow is a very big and cozy home with a vast garden outside. It was a very beautiful home and I can remember myself amazed at such nice big houses there are! Our room was, sad to say, not at the upper floor, but at the little room at the back of the house, next to the kitchen. What do I expect, we were live-in maids. Well, I didn't expect anything actually, in fact I didn't feel any regrets or remorse for that experience I had when I was 16.

The bungalow was quite near to my high school, and it was only logical I cycled to school at that time. And so that started our life differently a bit. I would go to school in the morning while my mom worked at the employer's home, cleaning, washing, cooking. I come home from school, helped my mom to sweep and mop the floor and prepare dinner.

Everytime I sweep its floor, I would look at the details of its rooms, the curtains, the decors, the antiques. I wondered if I can ever stay as a master of a house like this one day. I knew that my life at that phase, shall past, it wouldn't stay like that forever and one day, one fine day, our family would be reunited again.

Surprisingly, the employer wanted us to have dinner with them and so, we would all be eating together every evenings. Once, my mom told me not to take my sweet time to enjoy the food there as it wasn't very polite since we were only the workers there. From there on, I gobbled my food and excused myself to do my homework while they continue eating. When they were done, I would help to clean up so my mom could rest for the day already.

After 3 months or so, I could tell, mom wasn't feeling very happy and she was also mentioning that her finger nails had been getting pretty bad from the harsh washing detergents. I encouraged my mom to quit this job and join dad, while I would be able to take care of myself. After this talk, she did just that and I moved back to our own home's back room while the other 2 rooms rented out to 2 couples.

I was alone to fend for myself.