Tattered Check: The Road To Healing

Triumph from the Pain

I was a straight A student. Well, not really straight As but I was always on the top save for my third grade when my teacher hated me and did everything to pull me down. It did not help that I incurred a lot of absences during the year too because of a plethora of illnesses that seemed to like me a lot that year.

I was one of the last to enrol for the first grade at our school so being a heterogeneous group, I was assigned to the last section. Imagine my dismay when I realized that while I was already a passable reader, my classmates barely know their alphabets or write their names. (Although I read "said" as you would read "side". Well, I pronounced it the right way when my grandma was around but when I was alone, it would still be "side". Whoever thought that /a-i/ would sound /e/?)

School became my refuge. The time I spent at school were some of the blissful moments in my life. It gave me an avenue to escape the pain at home. A cranky grandma, a rice basket usually empty, no tv, no electricity, no chance to play. Wherever was happy at home?

School vacations are the most hated part of the year. It meant we'd be prisoners in our own home, if one could ever call it a home. But it anchored us so it was home for us. Vacations are spent in endless chores, grandma's tantrums, little to no play, a good whacking in the slightest infraction not to mention the belittling words comparing us to our good-for-nothing parents (my grandma's words, not mine, though I thought it too, many times). When my grandma was in a tantrum, she made sure the rest of our neighbors and farm workers knew it. Might as well have used a megaphone to enumerate our stupidity. By the time she took a break, we were too ashamed to go out of our house. Yes, it was just a break. She just stored oxygen in her lungs so she could resume her litany nonstop when she had stored enough. Many times I wished I was dead. Or I was deaf. Or I was somewhere else. Or my mom or dad would come take us. Anything to escape this hell called home. No one came. No one rescued us. And so I escaped.

I escaped through school. When I did good in school, I became my grandma's pride. I lost myself in books. I wrote poems and letters no one read because I burned them when I have already poured my heart out. I escaped through day dreams, making up stories to tell to my classmates to mask the pain at home. I endeavored to be the best so my grandma will be proud of me and I will escape her wrath. But I didn't. I wish I did but I didn't. My brother didn't escape either. He took the brunt of my grandma's wrath because he was the "slow" and rebellious one. My youngest sister didn't escape even when she was my grandma's favorite. She saw everything. She may have escaped the whackings but she didn't escape the pain.

But I pressed on. To escape the constant gloating, I became an exemplary student. I mastered Scrabble to appease my grandma's incessant need to be intelligent. I read and reread Shakespeare, Roman and Greek mythology. My vocabulary was expansive due to the constant Scrabble games and I knew more weird words than most kids my age. I mastered my story writing, always a happy ending in each, hoping it would be mine. But the happy ending never came, at least not during that time.

The best thing about school was that no one knew I was miserable. My grandma was a staunch supporter of education so she attended every PTA meeting, visited us frequently to check on us. She was a different person at school and it made me escape. But a bad word from the teacher would mean pain on your butt so I made sure it was always a good report. My sister did too. My brother wasn't too lucky. But she didn't let on at school. Her true self was reserved to the people who knew her well. That was us.