"We may be done with the past, but the past is not yet done with us." -- famous line from the film "Magnolia" (directed by Paul Thomas Anderson)
I'm done questioning God why I was born to uneducated parents. I'm done blaming their parents, who I did not have the fortune (or misfortune) of knowing, as they all expired before I was born. Thing is, this chapter of my life history, i.e. the part about my parents not being sent to school to be educated, keeps haunting me. Every single day of my 35 years has been a tragic testimony of a very unfortunate past...
Imagine being born to parents who couldn't understand enclosed instructions on how to administer an antibiotic because they couldn't decipher the English language. Imagine being raised by parents who do not have the slightest idea what adolescent angst is, or what child psychology is (which is why I made it a point to major in Child Study). Imagine having to translate to your father the contents of National Geographic magazine, because he happens to love reading, but is illiterate in the language.
Imagine these: (1) Your mother has to be confined for hypertension and palpitations because she took an energy drink every night for a full couple of weeks, not knowing its consequences; (2) Your father being bullied and deceived by his boss for more than 10 years because he did not even finish the 4th Grade and he doesn't know his rights; (3) Your parents never attending the PTA meetings EVER, because they feel like a microbe amidst your classmates' professional parents; (4) Being bullied by your own parents all your life because they're so insecure about their lack of proper education they think they're only powerful when you're under full parental control...
It's pretty messed up. It sucks big time.
There was a time when things were so screwed up and my family was falling apart, because our parents thought they were right (when they're freakin' not!) and I was lying in bed in a state of stupor, muttering curses to my grandparents. I blamed them for my parents' ignorance.
I blamed them for thinking that their daughter's place in this world is limited to the kitchen and the delivery room. I blamed them for entrusting their son's future to the so-called "destiny," dispatching him to the streets to work, instead of sending him to school so he could be a lawyer or an engineer or a bank manager. My father, an elementary undergrad who has excellent leadership skills and is very trustworthy was almost promoted to managerial position at a gas station franchise. When his boss learned he never finished grade school, the promotion went to some bloke who has a college diploma. The usual story, you know.
My mother wanted to be a lawyer. But her father, who was a Fil-Hispanic born in 1891, thought she's better off being some guy's wife (God forgive him). I've heard a lot about him from my mother and my aunts. He was apparently educated and cultured; conversant in Spanish, English, Nippongo and the dialect; married five times. But why didn't he ever think of giving his many kids a good future?
Perhaps this is the wisdom behind the tragedy of not getting to know your grandparents. If they were alive today, there would only be bitterness and blames and enmity between us.
When I look at my parents now that they're old and gray, I see the failure of the past. I see the tragedy of ignorance, the misfortune of being born to parents who are also part of the vicious cycle of ignorance.
But here's my parents' redeeming factor, ignorant as they are: they sent me to school.
