Don't be an underdog. Dare!

Don’t be an Underdog. Dare!

Ma. Desiree J. Damiar

Abandoned. My life as a product of a broken family made me and my brother felt  like  unwanted children. My mother instilled in my mind that our father was already dead.  The truth? We were hidden from our father in a far-away province. My father had other families. Yes, families. My last count was family #3. My mother was in and out of several failed relationships. Yes we were abandoned and were left  wondering why.

I came to know my biological father when he showed up in my grade 1 recognition day, I was seven years old then. Totally shocked and surprised when a stranger  pinned my first honor medal and clapped the loudest when I made a very short speech. My mother lied. A great big, big fat lie.

The next meeting I remembered with my father was a few years later,  when he just showed up and took us to watch “Holiday on Ice” then we had dinner in a restaurant nearest  the coliseum. My stomach was so stressed and I remember I kept on vomiting. I did not enjoy that once-in-a-lifetime reunion.

Growing up pains. We grew up under the care of  our maternal grandma whose business was trading TRASH for CASH. Grandma’s house turned into a  trash house  with piles and piles  of junk here and there. Imagine the smell, those  differently clad and dirty human beings and oh so many male adult and children “scavengers” with wooden carts that come and go during  wee hours to bring trash to our place, either leaving with a grin or  a smirk on their faces with  a few centavos or sometimes pesos that they earned for food or whatever.  

Childhood was never easy, no birthdays, no Christmases, no toys, no favourite food as we have to eat whatever was in the table. We have to help grandma in her business. We have no luxuries in life.  We never had a television. We outgrew our clothes. I watched cartoons from a neighbors’ television for a fee during Saturdays or Sundays. We never had a typewriter that I can use for reports. I painstakingly used my hands in writing reports and doing essays. Making sure that my  calligraphy was worth hanging in our school’s bulletin board.

Who am I to complain? I didn’t have the nerve.  How I yearned  for life to get better. Envious of other schoolmates being fetched, whose hands were securely held by their mom, dad or both parents.   

I vowed to myself, I will rise and be different. I sincerely pledged to myself  that when I grew up and have a family, I will stick with the family that I built no matter what the circumstance may be. 

My brother never understood the complex situation that we were in. Rebelled, he stopped studying while in his  1^st year of high school, focused on going out and being friends with a gang of notorious characters, took home a girl that he didn’t knew very well at age fourteen. Rough times rolled in.  Gang rivalry killed him. Murdered in cold blood witnessed by his son.

School? I am an honor student since my elementary days. College? I  passed a full scholarship, AB Psychology was my course, from a government-owned university.  But circumstances went sour,  when in my upcoming third year the trash business went down, really down as my grandma’s health deteriorated. A five pesos for  transportation and meal allowance was never regular in the palm of my hands, oftentimes it was only two pesos, good enough for jeepney fare, nothing more. We didn’t  have money for school supplies, with dilapidated schoolbag and shoes, always hungry for material things and love.

An uncle helped me from time to time, he bought me books and supplies, sometimes cash that somehow filled the void in me. I was always at the school library to while away the hours reading and will only go home before sunset. I hate the surroundings where I live. Traumatized. Wondered what my future will be in the days to come.

Dare? In so many times, I had the nerve to dare myself.

1^st . Dared and opted to take a clerical job and hoped to continue studying at night. Bullied at work because I was an undergraduate, contemplated to return to studying but my school has no night school.    I transferred to a university very well-known in the field of business.  Poor me, all units from my first school were not credited so I started from the beginning again. Imagine my daily routine?  before 8 am I have to be in the office. By 5pm after office, travel to school and have to be in the university at 6pm to 9pm then travel home. Sleep was so precious.

2^nd Dared to escape reality. Got married early in life with my boyfriend of two years. He has a job that earned more than me, hoped that together, we will surpass this poor and needy life. I was wrong.

Office life. Being a low-salaried clerk, running personal and office errands for those whose ranks are above me,  I thought then that it was a test of my endurance. 

3^rd Dare. My office boss, an accounting graduate and with a conditional grade in the CPA board exam really tested my patience. I was in my first year of accounting  when she, the boss  cannot balance the ledger for almost three days. No computer and no accounting software  those days. Accounting is being done manually. She told me “ balance this and show me that your scholarship then was real!” Modesty aside, it only took me 15 minutes. I showed her erroneous entry. She was at awe! If only  the  technology then  was as good as now, a picture of her gaping mouth will be a testimony of what I did.

That boss took a leave of absence to review and took her failed CPA board exam subject. Luck was on her she passed that subject and gloated in my face, always had a snide remarks on me. Hurt, but I had to go on.

4^th Dare.  I presented my grades to the President of the office  that I worked in. He was so impressed and he brought the matter to the board of directors and they unanimously gave me scholarship. I was so grateful that every test paper that I had was presented to him, so full of determination to graduate.

5^th Dare. I did not took a leave  of absence from work while on review. I dared to ask my work hours to be transferred temporarily from 1pm to 8pm. Request granted.  Thankful for that episode because the reviewers in the morning were top notch individuals in the field of accounting.

I was absent from work for only  two weeks without pay  in preparation for the CPA board exam.

Sweet fruit of my labor?  Passed the CPA board exam in one take. A big congratulations in the office bulletin board greeted me from the board of directors.

Those were just a few chapters of my life.  Being poor and needy never stopped me.



Dared myself and Won.