Dear Mom,
First of all, happy birthday! I'm sorry
I wasn't able to celebrate in a fancy restaurant. And thank you so much for
sending me to such a wonderful place; my experiences in the Philippines were
the greatest things that happened to me.
At first when I opened the white wooden
door into a hot, steamy, small, but cozy little room, the room was like a
hotel; all the furniture was in a right angled order, and nothing was
extraordinary about it. The room was utterly clean, without single dust on the
floor, and the bed sheets and towels were neatly folded. Apparently in the
Philippines, every household owns several housemaids because of the low personnel
expenditure.
"Are you saying that I don't have
to do my bed or organize my own desk here? Yay! This is amazing!" I cried
out loud in joy after listening to my Ajjuma's (the owner of the house I lived
in) explanation.
"Sure. In fact, you'll be in
trouble if you ever do these tasks yourself. I have to train my maids since
some of them are new here."
Except for the fact that it was
extremely hot (the temperature reached over 40 degrees Celsius), the place was
a paradise for me. There wasn't anyone to scold me or order me to do this or
that. Back at home, I had World War Three with you every day, remember? You always
tried to find any flaws that I might have made, 24 hours a day. I was delighted
to have gotten out of all that.
One day during the six months of my
homestay in the Philippines, I caught a really bad cold, as you already know; I
couldn't move at all; my body temperature went up to 40 degrees Celsius, but I was
still freezing. I skipped school and stayed in my bed all day. At 1 in the
afternoon, my roommate came back from school and turned on the air conditioner.
I understood her at first, because she was sweating all over, but after a
while, I felt even more terrible with extra coughs.
"Hey Sora, could you turn off the
air conditioner? I'm freezing here. Please?" I asked just to be polite
since I was quite sure that she would gladly turn it off. It was more than
obvious that I caught a bad cold and I needed the air conditioner to be turned
off, so her answer was totally unexpected.
"You never consider others, do you?
You are so selfish, did you know that? I know that you caught a cold, but I
live in this room too, and can't you see I'm sweating like crazy? You should really
start to learn to consider others too, you know."
I was infuriated with her, but I had no
energy to fight, so I just stayed still and fell asleep. Apparently, my cold
got worse.
A few days later, I got better. However,
this time it was Sora who caught the cold; she must have gotten infected from
me. She lay down all day long. Her coughs went on and I felt the strong need to
turn off the air conditioner, but I remembered what she had done to me.
Only God knows why Ajjuma had to come
into the room at that moment.
"My God, MinSun! Can't you see that
Sora caught a terrible cold? And the cold was from you, remember? Now turn off
the air conditioner immediately!"
I knew that it was bad, but I didn't
want to do it. I knew it was childish, but I felt that it was unfair. I was 13
years old, at the peak of my puberty, so I was rebellious more than ever; I
shouted back at her face as loud as I could. She got so mad that she went
downstairs and called you. You and Ajjuma talked for quite some time. I tried
to eavesdrop your talk from upstairs, but unfortunately, I couldn't catch a
thing.
"MinSun, come down and get your
mom's call!" shouted Ajjuma.
"Oh, shit," I
uttered to myself, assuming that you would shout at me again. "This is my
worst day ever."
With an extremely angered face, Ajjuma
handed the phone over to me. I took it. I scowled at her for a moment, looked
away, and listened to what the telephone had to say. I kept some distance
between the phone and my ear since I expected shouting, when I heard a small
crying voice from it. I couldn't believe my ear so I pushed the phone against
my ear instantly.
"I know. I know you didn't do it on
purpose. I know my own daughter, and she couldn't have done it on evil
purpose."
"You do?"
"Of course, I know you have a
reason to have done that. But MinSun, sometimes, you have to give in to these
situations. You're in a foreign country, and in a house that is not your own.
You don't have to explain to me what had happened, nor to Ajjuma. She wouldn't
try to understand you. I'm on your side, so just go tell Ajjuma that you're
sorry and turn off the air conditioner. That's how you can live your life much
easier."
You were crying, so was I. It was the first
time that I've heard you cry. It was the first time I realized that you were
always on my side. My eyes were full of tears, but I didn't want to cry in
front of Ajjuma. I put down the phone and ran upstairs into my bathroom. It
felt as if someone was poking and opening up my wounded heart. It hurt, so
much. I cried until I felt dehydrated, and opened the bathroom door into my
room. Sora was sleeping in her bed, buried in multiple sheets. I quietly turned
off the air conditioner, pulled out a piece of paper, and began to write this
letter for you.
Love, MinSun
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She looked up from the letter, to me.
She didn't shout or anything, but I could tell from her eyes that she was quite
surprised to see me sitting right beside her while she was reading my letter.
She smiled at me, but she didn't say anything. I wished she would break the
silence, but she just smiled at me, which started to make me a little
uncomfortable. So I spoke out first.
"If you think of me as a daughter
who is always rebellious to your thoughts, I am not anymore. After all the
years I've been with you, I finally can see the true purpose of all your
nagging and scolding. I simply thought you hated me when you scolded me instead
of my sister when we had a fight, and I really thought you hated me. In fact,
until this moment, I've considered my family useless by the time I grow up and
actually get to live on my own. I remember that night when I came home late.
What had really happened that night was I
had watched a movie with my friend after lying to you that I would stay and
study. It was late, but I didn't answer your calls on purpose because I didn't
want to get caught for watching movies and lying to you. You were so worried
about me, so you called everyone, including my best friend who was watching the
movie with me, the academy that I was supposed to be in, and the police. When
the police called me, it was then when I knew I was in big trouble and blamed
you for calling the police and making everything so big a deal. I couldn't
understand why you would call the police just because I didn't receive my calls
for a couple of hours. When I arrived home, you had tears in your red eyes and
I remember you saying something about the importance of family and how I should
keep in contact especially at night in this dangerous world. I laughed at you
inside.
But now, I know. I finally understand
what you've been trying to say. It's my first time that I realize that my
family is the only one that is going to stand on my side whatever happens to
me."
