I came from a broken family and I am not ashamed of it. I have three beautiful caring sisters in which I can tell my problems to whenever my mom is out of reach for some reason. I have a very big extended family to rely on so it doesn’t bother me if my father is around or not.
I have lived with my cousins and grandparents for more than a year. There were more than 20 people living in my Granny’s house and it was a great experience living there for it taught us valuable life lessons. I learned to give and share what I have because there were ten (10 cousins) of us and if I don’t they might get envy and Mamala (granny) has no money to give us what we all wanted. We learned to be frugal, our everyday sack lunch was a pack of Lucky Me! Pancit Canton and some coins not bigger than 5 pesos if Papalo got his monthly pension. We also learned to do household chores at a very young age because Mamala is very old and she van’t do everything on her own. From cooking to cleaning the bathroom, we managed to finish and help each other even if we fight over and over again on who will do this and that.
We may not live a wealthy life but we do have a very healthy and happy relationship with each other that no one can ever take from us.
Now that we are grown-ups, three are graduating from college this summer while others have their own families, we will keep in mind all the things that we have learned from “bahay ni Mamala”. We are financially unstable but our hearts are filled with love and laughter because we have one another.
