“Give me their passports now!!”, my dad threatened holding a knife in his right hand.
How did this happen? Or should the question be why did it happen? My family and I always knew he was a mad but smart man. He knew everything he was doing. It was all planned. He came home one day and went straight to the bedroom. Our house only had 2 bedrooms: a big one and a small one. The small bedroom was for my dad and the big bedroom was for mom and us, the children. The two bedrooms were connected. One needs to go through the big bedroom to reach the small one. In the big bedroom, there were 2 double bunk beds placed next to each other near the wall which left the middle of the room very spacious and empty.
That day my dad came home, he barged straight into the bedrooms with his shoes on. We heard many noises coming from the room, so we immediately ran into the room to see what was happening. We saw dad going crazy throwing things on to the ground from the cupboard and closet. It seemed like he was trying to find something. When my mom saw this, she immediately knew nothing good was going to come out of this. So she whispered, “Stay quiet and don’t react when things happened. She looked straight at two of my eldest sisters’ eyes, “look after them”. She walked in front of us while my two eldest sisters stood beside us, the five younger kids.
“What are you doing? You are scaring the kids,” my mom said calmly. My dad ignored her and continue to throw things around. The empty space soon filled with school books, papers and clothes.
“Stop!” my mom said loudly and grabbed my dad’s wrist. “What are you trying to find?”.
“Stop pretending! You know what I’m finding! Give me their passports!” He commanded while slapping her hand away.
“It’s not here and I won’t give them to you” my mom said it through her grit teeth starting to get angry and realize what my dad was up to. “Why do you want their passport, Dil?” she asked to confirm her thoughts.
“None of your business” my dad replied starting to get annoyed.
“Those are my kids; I have all the right to know! Are you trying to send them back to Pakistan and get them married to strangers?!!” anger showed in her tone.
“I said shut up woman!” His answer confirmed my mom’s thoughts. At that same time, my dad found a small luggage that kept all the important document within it inside the closet hidden within the clothes. When my mom saw dad taking out the luggage, my mom rushed forward and tried to grab the luggage out from his tight grip. But it ended in my dad pushing her very hard to the ground. My third sister, Mariam, rushed forward to help my mom up when my second sister, Neshad, moved forward to snatch the luggage. Neshad tried hitting and pushing him to steal the luggage. My dad having a strong build swung his arms at my sister and she fell to the ground. She stood up immediately not backing down and tried again. This angered my dad. To him, such action aren’t acceptable coming from a girl. He viewed females as a lower being. So he grabbed my sister’s hair, clutched it tightly and my sister started to scream out in pain.
“Stop!” my mom yelled out. My heart was racing; feeling scared and lost. I didn’t understand what is going on. I held onto my other sister’s tee-shirt who was standing beside me. I can feel my hands shivering with fright even though I had them clutched around my sister’s shirt. My eldest sister standing in front of me had her hands balled into a fist and they were shaking not with fright, but with anger.
“Let go of her!” my mom yelled again. So my dad picked my second sister up and threw her on to the lower deck of the bed. “You’re crazy!” my mom shrieked. My dad picked up the luggage he dropped it on the floor and examined it carefully. Then suddenly he rushed to the kitchen and came back holding a kitchen knife in his right hand. He was standing in the middle of the room one hand holding the knife and the other holding the luggage. He raised his right hand and pointed the knife towards us. I shut my eyes and my brain kept repeating “No, no, no …”. I wanted to block everything out but the argument between my mom and dad was getting more and more intense so that no matter what I did, I couldn’t shut out anything. Then I heard a scream, I got so frightened that I screamed out, “MOM!!”
I screamed and woke up sitting on my own bed. Eyes wide open and breathing rapidly and heavily. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath trying to regulate my breathing. Listening to the clock ticking sound that went “tick, tock, tick, tock”, counting and breathing according to the sound, I calmed down. I opened my eyes stared blankly at my own hands. My trembling hands were clutched tightly onto the blanket. I let out a huge sigh and thought to myself ‘what was that?’. I remained seated trying to piece back the dream that I had. When I did, one word came on my mind, “Dad”. I sighed again and fell back to the bed.
Sorrowful thoughts clouded my mind. What is dad? Shouldn’t he be the person that provide unconditional love to his children? Pampering, caring and teaching his children how to ride a bicycle and love them. Most importantly, protect them but instead he hurt us physically and mentally. “Why does he hurt us?” My mind jumbled with many questions, making me think about the past.
I remembered there was a time in my life trying to understand the behaviour of my dad where I would think maybe the problem was us. Maybe we didn’t do enough to make him happy. Maybe we didn’t show him lots of love. Tears started to swell at the corner of my eyes. I lifted both my arms and rested them on my face to hide my tears. My chin quivered and tears slid down on both side of my face. I bit down on my lower lips trying to drown my own choking voice and to put a pause to my upsetting thoughts.
It was not us it was him. The problem was him. Thinking back to the dream again, my blood started to boil with anger. The thing was it wasn’t just a dream, at the time I was barely five years old that time and my eldest sister was just 15. None of us should have went through that. I hated him with all my heart. The hate burns so deep in my heart that it was ingrained into me. We forgave him multiple times with open heart and arms, yet he disappointed us with disgust and annoyance in his behaviour. Our crying was “manipulation” and our sadness was “seeking attention” for him. His fake act of driving us to school was to show the world he was a loving father. He values his dignity, yet his action to love us was shallow.
I sat up again from my bed still thinking. It has been 17 years since my mom divorced him for us. Yet he left scars and problems in our lives. My mom would wake up from time to time in the middle of the night from nightmares of how my dad abused her and destroyed the family. For us, the children, it is hard for us to trust people, especially when we are in an intimate relationship. We become insecure easily.
Suddenly, a low mumbling sound snapped me out of my heavy thoughts. Then I realized my fifth sister, Samena, is sleeping beside me mumbling something about her dream. ‘Well, at least some one is having a good dream’, I thought. Looking at her reminded me of a conversation I had between my brother and my mom two nights before.
My brother was eating his burger late night after he come home from his part-time job. I was sitting there watching TV with my mom. When my mom asked my brother a question out of the blue.
“What would you do if one day you bump into your dad?”, My mom asked turning to my brother.
“I will pull him to an alley and beat him up” stated my brother like as if it is an obvious fact.
“But you will end up getting into jail. That’s not worth it, son”, my mom continued.
“That’s why I said I will pull him into an alley where no one can see what I did!”,
my mom shook her head disapprovingly with a small smile while I giggled loudly at my brother’s reply.
Looking at the clock, I realized it was soon going to be morning. I took a deep breath and then let it out. That person who he called himself my father dug his own grave. He was given unconditional love by us but he left his rights as a father. He left scars deeply embedded in our hearts, yet it made us stronger. We are scared to love, yet we love deeper.