From not being there during my recognition day and graduation in school, being a strict disciplinarian and not caring for us at all. The idea of having a time machine is really awesome I'd say because you can rewrite the things that happened in the past to avoid what "might" happen in the future. Hence if I will be able to use that for sure I will not hesitate to do that.
Given the privilege to use the time machine, I will go back to the time wherein my father started smoking and drinking. I will punch him really hard on his face and tell him that I am his miserable son in the future and I just came back from the past to tell him that he is not a good father that he made us suffer. For sure he will believe that I am his son because we definitely look a like haha these are my thinking when I was in my teen to twenty years of age. Now that I am a grown-up man, and I am the one who usually accompany him he always say that if ever he did not do it then probably our situation we will not be in deep dire as it was.
Some time in May 2009, father experienced excruciating pain in his chest and difficulty in breathing. At first he thought that it is just fatigue due to working but as the days go by his pain is gradually increasing. Father was a heavy smoker back then as he can finish up to 3-4 packs of Mark per day. He told us that he cannot stop smoking because whenever he smoke that is the time wherein he feels relaxed and relieved from the chest pain. Until one day same month on his way going home after the regular session every Sunday (drinking with his friends) he stumbled somewhere and became unconscious that time so instead of waking up in our home he was rushed to the nearby hospital.
There we found out what is really happening and what is the current condition of my father. He is suffering from a Cardiovascular disease wherein his the flow of blood and oxygen is not doing well his arteries are clogged. I forgot the term that the doctors used before but those are their findings and the main contributor on that, cigarettes and excessive drinking of alcoholic beverages. He stayed in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) for 3 days and stayed in the hospital for more than 2 weeks our family incurred a huge amount of debt that time around 200,000 pesos which is around $4,000 if converted into dollars that time. The amount given was the amount minus the deductions from the insurance cards so if he doesn't have one for sure we will be paying more for that. My mom stayed in the hospital most of the time because there's no one that is available that time and I together with my younger siblings were left at home.
With no parents to support us, we are left with no choice but to rely on each other. We need to contribute or help our mother and father to at least ease the pain and worry that they are experiencing. Just to keep our stomachs full salt has been our main dish. Rice has no taste at all, hence rock salt made it something edible. Also we used soy sauce and cooking oil and even fish crackers being sold in a local sari-sari store. We managed to survive the 2 weeks with those stuff and never asked help from mother that time because they need all the money that they can have to cover the bills.
That time it is also the enrollment period in PUP and I need to pay it so that I can enroll my tuition fee at that time is less than 500 or around $10 per semester. The price is really affordable for a family but since I do not know where I will get that amount I told myself that I will not enroll on that semester because if I will do that, how about my daily expenses? Who will cover those for me? I abandoned the idea of going to school that time, and at my age I decided to check on ways how I can earn extra money for ourselves. From asking our neighbors if they have thrash that needs to be thrown, to being in "jueteng" ( it is somehow an illegal numbers game here ), selling ice candy and ice drop and being a "boy" in a local sari-sari store. Those 2 weeks made me realize that I am not a kid anymore and I need to "man-up" because if I do not then we will be hungry. From being a selfish bastard which I shared on my previous post A Personal Tale of Being a Video Game Addict|| How I was able to Overcome it. I become the man of the house a mini-tatay.
If some are glad when someone comes out from the hospital. I myself is not, I wished that he died on that day because if he did then we will not be in that situation. We owe a huge amount on the hospital where my father was admitted and also the daily medicine that he needs are really expensive. To begin with our family is not rich, we are classified as a middle class family I think before the incident happened. We own a small shoe business, a bandsaw machine, and a motorcycle. All of those are sold in bargain price just for the sake of paying for his medication and a down payment to the hospital. We even decided to move back to the province and sell the house where we are at.
We never asked help to the local politicians btw because my father is against it. He said that he will never ask help from the other political party ( see how he is really prideful ). Thus I never applied for any scholarship at all to the local government because he is against it as well.
As a gift to myself on my birthday. I applied in the call center industry and luckily I passed all the interview and test and there we are able to at least make staggered payment and then in a year time span we are already debt free from the hospital. I was able to send my other sibling to college and thus our life begin to go back where it was.
Since I do know what are the effects of smoking and drinking I told myself that I will not try to taste both and I am glad that my friends from the BPO industry doesn't force me to do so because they know my story. How I struggle because of the vice that my father had, I need to take care of myself for my future too.
I do have a lot of what ifs, like if ever that I did go back and stopped my father from being introduced to cigarette and alcohol. I may have finished my college degree that time. Working in a school as a public teacher or a professor because my classmates are already teaching and they are doing well. Maybe if I was able to stop him from doing that we still have our own business and a lot of stuff available. Those are my thinking back then, a future which is somehow vague and unclear.
But if that will happen, then I will not be able to become a person that I am right now. I will not meet the people who changed my life and my thinking. I will not have a chance to meet the love of my life @ellebravo.
My spiritual families that guide me on this crazy journey. The pastors, church workers etc. And the amazing folks here on steemit that serves as my second family @steemitfamilyph.
The present me free from the hate and regrets from the past. I even told my father about my crazy thinking back then and I said sorry for that. We both apologize for what we have made in the past and we are are working on creating in the better future. We and our family decided to "move forward" rather than look in the past and try to think and try what we can rewrite it we decided to look in a future. The past is there for a reference on how we can be better in the next days or so. Because we will never knew what the future could bring only He can know and predict what will happen next.
You can also join the amazing contest by @coderzairos by checking on this link below. This is really a good contest plus you might get a chance to bag 5SBD :)
https://steemit.com/timetravelcontest/@coderzairos/if-i-have-a-time-machine-writing-contest