THANKFUL DESPITE OF….

Growing up in our neighborhood was never easy for me. I grew up in a community where most of our neighbors are going abroad to find for greener pastures. Luckily they did; they stumbled upon places of milk and honey.

Materially, their families were able to achieve what they want. Envy of this condition and desperate to provide us with a better life, my mother tried moving her way as well. My father inclined to follow his ideals never approved of that. At that age, I was confused my mother was I think overly submissive to our father missing the opportunity to follow her wants and desires, especially for her. Consequentially, my mother and father have to remain sellers all their life while our neighbors are enjoying life here and abroad, materially.

As the years are passing, the leaves falling from the branches that keep them, slowly our shy community started to expand. I observed house renovations here and there. I could see our neighbors acquiring assets, one thing we were greatly deprived of. I still remember we had a television because my aunt gave us one and that was in 2004, if my memory serves me right.

Because of our economic condition, we were expected to join our parents in the market selling their stuffs. Thus, we lived a secluded life. I, being the eldest and a female, was never given the freedom to spend ample time with my friends and visit the places in our small town.

Now, time has allowed me to process everything. The more than two concluded decades of my life made me realize the privilege we had, as a family. Today, an intact family is offered elusively; one thing we enjoyed. You may be together physically but you priorities in life differ. Or it may happen the other way around. This age showed me that living together in one family may last for only less than a decade because young families starts to break away due to economic demands. Thank God we made more than that.

Fathers or mothers going into far places to earn a living, and wanting to provide for their families needs because they are afraid that the society’s expectation will not be met. The Philippine’s dependence to OFW’s escalates yearly because the country cannot provide enough jobs for them.

The results of this search for green pasture are broken homes and broken lives in the neighborhood. Parents, who took the risk, leaving their kids behind, are trustful of their other half to take over all the responsibilities in the household more importantly tending their children. Unknowingly, when they get back they will be surprised with unwanted pregnancies, drug addicted children, out-of-school youth, unfaithful wife/husband, ailing house; and the worst no savings at all.

Building a family structured in a home will never be an easy task. However, repairing a broken family or broken life is a lot hard work than anything else, especially if you don’t know them anymore. Earning a lot in a faraway land may merit you the opportunity to aid a temporal hunger but the loss earned from leaving may mean a long enduring pain.