to the million memories before that

It didnt feel different to the million memories before that We just didn’t know what to say, and thought my mom deserved it and thats the mentality that we were forced to have. My mom did everything in my family, growing up in Ranui, my dad worked different factories and my mom worked for bit too, until my dad got jeolous because my mom worked with other men. He was insecure, but we were told by aunties, uncles etc, that no, your dad was just a jeolous old fashioned Samoan man. Sometimes, my dad would just snap and punch my mom while were driving to school, theres 6 kids, and I am the eldest. I got to see more than my brothers and sisters, and for that I’m greatful. He would work from Monday to Friday in his factory job, and when he finished up on Friday, we had to get ready for the swearing and the part 2 of my dad’s personality. He gathered us around and asked each one of us, about why we didn’t do something - nothing big or important, but I got punched in the face for not doing the dishes on Tuesday night at 8:30pm - yeah. it was calculated. Sometimes I thought, wow - he must memorize time and dates during the week to have a reason to give us a hiding. I was a good kid, I did all my school work and I remembered all my lines at white sunday and yet, it was somewhat forced, because if I didn’t then, I’d know what my dad memorized in his “When I get drunk list”. When we moved to Australia for a “better life” things didn’t really change, he had cut down on drinking, and so there were times when we had happy memories, but the memory of NZ was still fresh for me, I acted and played the fake happy family, until the next time I got a hiding. My mom got it the worst, and it’s the reason why I still hate my dad til this day. Picking up your mothers hair that had been ripped out, or wiping your mothers blood off the wall, and being scared to do so just in case it was another reason to get a hiding. They weren’t your usual tap on the head type of hidings, we got the I.C.U type, I had spent most of my 7th and 8th year of High School in the hospital, and even when I had a broken leg, that didn’t excuse me from getting a hiding. Remember, this was just Friday & Saturday. The other days, we just didn’t see him - and they were my favourite days of the week. I asked my mom a few times, why she still stayed with him, and she told me it was because of us, it was because on my brothers and sisters and that she didn’t want us raised with no father. Its a pity, because the poor excuse of a father that we did get, didn’t really do anything to be excited about or to strive to become. My mom was then diagnosed with cancer in 2000, she had just finished teaching me how to drive, because my dad didn’t want to. She had been to every single school function, school interview, school play, school anything - without my father, and during this time while she had medical appointments, my father was nowhere to be found. He thought it was a joke. He thought that doctor’s can fix everything from broken bones, busted lips, to cancer. My mom’s second round of treatments and chemo, she had relied on her kids to drive her to the hospital, and I did it with no hesistation, my father, still stayed the same. After my mother had both her left and right breast surgically removed, she had to wear the protective wrapping and bandages as her skin healed, and when my dad hit my mom during that time. Thats when I decided, I had no father. I did something that I’m not proud of, and will never regret. I gave my father a hiding - for my brothers and sisters, for my mother and for myself. His sisters (my Aunties) on my dad side have since been saying that I’m going to hell because I should never hit my parents. But thats O.k, because my biological father, was just that - he just donated the sperm, my real father, was my mom.. she did everything. I have forgiven my father, and I really don’t care if he doesn’t forgive me (I don’t see him anymore and if I did, I wouldn’t hesistate to smash him again if he ever pissed me off) I miss my mom, now that she’s gone. Her strength and courage to do everything for us (her children) will be remembered, the life that we had wasn’t a Brady Bunch, but my dad did teach us one thing. Never Strive to be like your father.