The first part of my past life

As I said in my profile, I was born in a small country called Vietnam.  I came from a poor family and lived in south of Vietnam.  My family consisted of my grandfather, grandmother, my eight aunts (there were eleven children but three died from sickness, so I only know eight aunts), my dad, and my mom. From what I know, my mom got marry when she was twenty-four years old, and born me a year later.  I guess she got marry too early, so that’s why she started to regret that she married my dad. 

When I was around one year old, my mom left him and took me with her to live with my family.  After then she decided to immigrant to America with her sister (which is my 6^th aunt).  She took me to the boat where she will leave, but then she got there the men on the boat said that I was too small and they were afraid that the trip would be too much for me to handle.  So my mom was force to left me behind in the care of all my aunts.  When my dad found out that my mom left to immigrant to America, he was furious but was more surprised to know that she left me behind.  So then he came from his rural area to the place where I was living with my aunts, and took back to his place.  My aunts did not opposed to his demand because I was, after all, his daughter; so he has the right to take me away with him.

After a few months living with my dad, I became very ill because back then I was still beast-feed by my mom, and also the fact that my dad did not have enough money to support me.  So then he has no choice but to bring me back to my family so they could take care of me.  At least when I live with my aunts, I have a chance of surviving.  My family right then had some spare money because one of my aunt dad came to America earlier and she had send some money to support the whole family.

I was finally out of my crisis situation and was healthy again.  But then my dad once again came to my family’s house and demanded to take me away.  My eldest aunt got worry and refused to let him take me away because she thought that if I went with my dad, then I would not survive, just like last time.  In her point of view, she thought that I was close to death with the condition that I was in back then. She and everybody else did not want for that happen again, so they made a deal with my dad.  My eldest aunt gave him some money and in return I get to stay with them.  My dad reluctantly agreed to the deal and left me in the care of my aunts.

Fast forward to when I was around three years old, my whole family wanted to go to America to have a better life.  My aunt, who has already in America, paid all the expense, prepared all the paper work for the whole family to come to America, and was preparing a place for everybody to stay, but there was one problem; ME.  Since my dad was still alive, the law said that I have to stay with my dad, which meant that I could not come with my family to America. But nobody wanted to see me stay in Vietnam where I will have no future and probably die from starvation. So then everybody made a plan that they will keep that secret from my dad and change my last name from my dad to my grandmother’s last name. That way, I was guarantee and enable to come to America with everyone else.

We came to America around 1992 and we lived in San Gabriel, California.  As for what happen to my mom; it turned out that she had not arrived to America yet, even though she left earlier than us.  Then we got news that she and my sixth aunt got stuck in Indonesia and was not enable to come to America anytime soon.  So then it turns out I came to America before my mom, even though I was rejected to go on the boat ride, which was really ironic because the one that left Vietnam first, which was my mom, came to America second.  But on the contrary, I left Vietnam second, but came to America first. Ha-ha-ha, it’s pretty funny when I put it that way. What is funnier is that while I grew up without my mom or dad, I started to call people who were close to me ‘mom’ and ‘dad’. I don’t remember calling anyone ‘dad’ but up until now, I still call 2 out of my eight aunts ‘mom’. I guess the only thing I benefit from this experience is that I gain two extra moms. Hehe.

And if you have any doubt about this story, let me say this now. Everything that I just wrote is ALL true. Believe it or not, all of that had happen to me, but that’s not even half of my past story. This is just the first part.