Good morning to all,
Did you ever wake up one morning and hope that, that particular day will bring you some good news or much awaited news but the day ended with a lot more head-ache than it did the day before? I am sure everybody had gone through that experience. Bad or good, we still had to face our daily lives faithfully and with true courage.
I,for one, had gone through the bad episodes within my fourty nine years of living more than I could chew. I feel much more open and free to share my stories now after I succeeded in writing about my cancer a few months ago and after I saw my daughter's host parent while in the U.S, Lisa Whaley shared something on her face book. After she posted on her wall, I saw many friends praying and cheering and encouraging her to be strong. That was truly something.
What I am about to write doesn't mean that I am looking for sympathy. I am merely sharing what I, or rather we, had been through for the past few years, and sometimes we needed an internal super force to face the challenge that were thrown onto our face. I was ashamed of our condition then, but I am not now. In fact, I think this is what I can truly say a blessing in disguise.
A few years ago, I was asked by my ex boss, a Japanese man to be his partner in a business he was about to venture in Langkawi. After discussing with my husband, we agreed. It was a success. We did well in the beginning. After a while, he became over ambitious and started to expand the little company a bit too early but slow in making payments to hotels. I warned him about it but he was adamant about expanding. He was in Tokyo whereas I was here. To cut the story short. The company collapsed and my partner vanished from the face of the earth. Left me all alone to pick up the hundreds of thousands of debt with most leading hotels on this island.
My phone never stopped ringing (call from the suppliers and hotels) asking for their dues. I couldn't go out without people asking for their money. When you live in an island, everybody knows everybody.I was clueless as to what should I do next. There were so many worries in my head that I suddenly developed migraine. I had countless of sleepless nights. I was mentally traumatized whenever I heard the phone rang. I tried calling my partner in Tokyo numerous times but I was never lucky. Finally I gave up on calling him.
Things started to turn to its worse when phone stopped ringing. You may think why was that bad? Because by now almost each and everyone involved was getting ready to sue me. Prior to being sued, we had no money left, not even a hundred bucks to our names. All the money that we had was used to pay up some small operators for their services rendered.
I remember, even the children still remember, there were times when we didn't have enough money to buy lunch. We had to scrape everywhere within the house or office searching for some small change to get us a packet of rice, imagine the three of us, as usual Sara, Sophie and me had to share one packet of food among the three of us. My husband will find his own coz he was always on the move. I had left some food at home for the boys. We can't even afford to buy an ice-cream, let alone crave for a Mac D. Many times our utility bills exceeded the due limit and we had to spend overnight with total blackness because it was left unpaid. It was embarrassing having to call friends and relatives asking for their help to lend us an advance. Even though they didn't know how deep our problem was, they still lend a helping hand. I was forever grateful to those who had been there when we were at our lowest. I was especially forever grateful to our lawyer friend, Izzat, who had been by our side helping both with financial aid and legal matters never asking anything for return and never charged us for services provided by him. Thank you.
Then, after about a year later, upon returning home from our office I saw a letter on the side desk. A brown envelop and it looked official. To me, brown envelop was never a good news. I called my husband and together we read the letter. I didn't get to finish the letter. I was dumbfounded. I sat myself quietly and so did my husband. It was an auction letter. They were to auction our house. The house that we both had bought with our sweat and hard earned money.
Both of us were totally quiet raking our heads trying to find an explanation to this current catastrophe.
We went to the respective bank and asked to give us some time and to consider the situation that we are in. It was no use. They had made the decision and wouldn't budge an inch unless we pay the amount that was fixed by them. As expected, we lost the house.
Right..what do we do now. By now, everything was happening way too fast to swallow. The next thing we knew, I was to appear in court being sued by our suppliers. I guess at that moment you can call me dead man walking. I breathe but I don't know if I was alive. Bad news came one after another. Someone told me, you have to give priority to the most crucial matter. Okay, that was a sound advise but which one should I prioritized. Everything was crucial at that moment.
Again, we survived the disaster. The worst has yet to come. I am at the verge of losing my mind. But we came through the ordeal like a newborn baby. We start our lives with a new hope.
Then, last year I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My world collapse right in front of my eyes. By now, I've lost for words to describe how I feel about it. Like I wrote earlier in my blog, I worried about my children. But after some time, I came bouncing back to my normal self. That is me.
Everything was taken away from us. We faced the challenge with what little hope we had within us. Both my husband and I informed the children about our situation. They accepted it like an adult. I remembered the day we told them, it was within Ramadhan month and "Eid" or Hari Raya was just around the corner. We even can't afford to bake any cookies during that time. The children never even asked for new dresses or shirts for that year's Eid.
To this day, the children will buy whatever they want such as their I-Pads or cell phones using their own money. I will only chipped in a little to round it up. We stick together like strong glue. We live in a smaller house now but we are way happier than before. They lead their lives the way it should be and we, my husband and I will always be behind them to guide from wrong to right and that applied to us as well.
As for my Japanese partner, I don't abhor any bad feelings towards him anymore as, hey..look on the bright side, I got to speak some Japanese while with him.
So, you see, not everything bad is bad for us. It makes us appreciate what life really is and we know the strength of our beings.
Someone once had chided me "You are pathetic". That was one of the words that has made me a strong person to this day. It sounded harsh and it did but I took hold of that word like a charm to my life.
I wish to add a little bit more, to all of you out there, who may have shared the same difficult life as I did, don't lose hope, don't let it bring you down, you fight back, fight hard and you will believe there's always a silver lining behind every cloud. And it's worth your while.
Out for now.
Rose
15th.Oct '12
