Chapter II: The Decision

I may not be here today to tell you how blessed I am. I may not be the person whom you’d be talking with now. I won’t be the person whom you are irritated right now. I won’t be the person whom you know today--- whom you’re angry at, whom you’d be annoyed with. These things won’t happen to you or to me if I didn’t take the path that I have chosen today.

I have been here for 18 years and 6 months now. I have been into the worst that life can offer. I really don’t understand why I should be taking such bad experience. I wonder why people should undergo such a hard time doing something when you can have it all in a different way.

My father used to tell me stories about how they have overcome the challenges when they were just starting to have their own family. They used to tell me about how they managed to have a family with just 50 pesos on their pocket. They were not that prepared when they started a family. They weren’t that good as well. My father finished college, yet he did not have job. I would blame him for this because he didn’t perform well. My mother on the other hand finished two years of college. They hand in hand helped each other to have a family. They used to tell me about the products that they cook. The sagmani, a type of kakanin common in the province, had been their way of surviving the hardships in life. My mother prepares them while my father sells them to our neighbors. If they happen to sell all of their products, the money will be used to buy the food, but if they won’t be able to sell all, the remaining kakanin shall serve as their food for the rest of the day.

During rainy days of their lives they were together. In good and bad times they were happy. The happiness inside their house got even better when they had a child. It was the decision that they have lived with. For me it has been one of the best decisions they have ever thought of.