As far as I could remember, I had a great childhood. I had loving parents Emiko and Edward Santiago, a fun sister named Emidy and a daredevil brother named Edward Joeito, loving grandparents from both parents, loving aunts and uncles from both parents, wonderful friends, and living in paradise. My mom and dad would take us surfing and swimming on the weekends at the beach, as a matter of fact, I think we lived on the beach more than on land. Every summer my parents would take us to the amusement park and we would stay all day riding every ride and rollercoasters they had.
My mom was a Japanese chef at a hotel so we got to go in the waterslides and waterpark for free. My mom taught me how to cook, sew, design and make clothes for my barbies and myself, handwash my clothes,type, plant flowers and vegetables. She would tie sponges on the bottom of our feet with shoelaces and make us scrub the tile floors in the first house we lived at. She also made sure we always went to Catholic school every Sunday and attended church after. She made sure we were baptized and had our first holy communion.
My dad had a boat so we would go to parts of the island of Guam that no one else could without one. He would pull us from the back of the boat holding on to a leash as we rode on the surfboards. We would jet ski, go off roading on quads in the mountains, float down rivers on tire floats after we had storm after storm flood the rivers, jump off waterfalls into beautiful lakes, go hiking, and go hunting for deer late at night. My dad taught me how to snorkel, scuba dive, spear fish, pole fish, trolling, crank a boat engine and drive the boat. He taught me how to scale a fish, gut them, and prepare them on the grill. He taught me how to pick clams and topshells from the reefs. He would spear gigantic fishes, 100 pds and more, huge lobsters, octopuses, and sharks so we could eat them for dinner and he could sell them at the market. I remembered opening the refrigerator door a few times screaming in shock because my dad cut the head off a shark, put a beer can in its mouth and placed it in the middle of the fridge to scare us. I would hear my dad laughing so hard at the way we would scream. My dad taught me how to change the oil in his truck, change a tire, fix different parts of a car, and ultimately at age 11 he taught me how to drive his 4x4 standard truck. My dad taught me how to mow a yard, install a sink, a toilet, build bedrooms out of a container, yes a shipping container. Yes, rooms with actual windows, so that means I had to cut through the metal to install and mount the windows. I learned how to make doors, cut out holes to install the doorknobs. Install electrical outlets, phone lines, panel ceiling, paneling walls, and vinyl flooring.
My parents taught me all of this before the age of 12. Wonderful life right? Yes it was. Life was great. It's funny how NOW I remember the great times I had when I was young yet for a long time if you asked me about my parents or my childhood I would tell you the other side of the story. There is always two sides of any story isn't there?
My mom has psychotic episodes. I was even told she has schizophrenia. She looks normal and sometimes acts normal but she has always had this challenge in her life. She would take the cap off the wine bottle, fill it with wine, and make us each drink a cap full before we went to sleep at night. She told us this was medicine to keep us from getting sick. Every time she would take us shopping and the cashier would say ma'am she would make a huge scene and yell at the lady, I'm not your mom. I never had sex with your dad. Then cuss out the person really loud in front of us. She would yell at my friends and call them names, She would be in her room by herself and argue out loud. I even tried to introduce her to my Okinawan friends and they too said they couldn't understand her. She would change the conversation several times and confuse the person speaking to her. The only time I remember her physically hurting one of us was when my sister and I were skating in the house and she told us to stop and go outside. We didn't and she grabbed my sister by the hair, dragged her 20 feet and threw her out the front door. She landed about 10 feet away.
My dad didn't make it any better. He physically, mentally and emotionally abused my mom. He always yelled at her and called her names in front of us. He was a chronic alcoholic and drug abuser. It got worse as I got older. He would get drunk after work and come home yelling at my mom and hurt her. Each time I would try to stop him, he would yell at me, pick me up and throw me to the wall. My dad received over 20 dui's, even a bui...yes that means he got a ticket riding a bicycle under the influence. He would make me go with him to parties so I can drive him home. My first experience was when I was 11, he showed me how to smoke marijuana, got me stoned, then showed me how to drive his 4x4 stickshift truck. My parents lived in the same house and had their own rooms. But that didn't stop my dad from bringing different drunk women to our home to have sex with them even with my mom home. He would even introduce me to them. Who does that?
It is what we choose to remember which then dictates how we live our lives. We can choose to be victims of our "circumstances" or we can choose to embrace our experiences in life as learning opportunities.
My mom was a Japanese chef at a hotel so we got to go in the waterslides and waterpark for free. My mom taught me how to cook, sew, design and make clothes for my barbies and myself, handwash my clothes,type, plant flowers and vegetables. She would tie sponges on the bottom of our feet with shoelaces and make us scrub the tile floors in the first house we lived at. She also made sure we always went to Catholic school every Sunday and attended church after. She made sure we were baptized and had our first holy communion.
My dad had a boat so we would go to parts of the island of Guam that no one else could without one. He would pull us from the back of the boat holding on to a leash as we rode on the surfboards. We would jet ski, go off roading on quads in the mountains, float down rivers on tire floats after we had storm after storm flood the rivers, jump off waterfalls into beautiful lakes, go hiking, and go hunting for deer late at night. My dad taught me how to snorkel, scuba dive, spear fish, pole fish, trolling, crank a boat engine and drive the boat. He taught me how to scale a fish, gut them, and prepare them on the grill. He taught me how to pick clams and topshells from the reefs. He would spear gigantic fishes, 100 pds and more, huge lobsters, octopuses, and sharks so we could eat them for dinner and he could sell them at the market. I remembered opening the refrigerator door a few times screaming in shock because my dad cut the head off a shark, put a beer can in its mouth and placed it in the middle of the fridge to scare us. I would hear my dad laughing so hard at the way we would scream. My dad taught me how to change the oil in his truck, change a tire, fix different parts of a car, and ultimately at age 11 he taught me how to drive his 4x4 standard truck. My dad taught me how to mow a yard, install a sink, a toilet, build bedrooms out of a container, yes a shipping container. Yes, rooms with actual windows, so that means I had to cut through the metal to install and mount the windows. I learned how to make doors, cut out holes to install the doorknobs. Install electrical outlets, phone lines, panel ceiling, paneling walls, and vinyl flooring.
My parents taught me all of this before the age of 12. Wonderful life right? Yes it was. Life was great. It's funny how NOW I remember the great times I had when I was young yet for a long time if you asked me about my parents or my childhood I would tell you the other side of the story. There is always two sides of any story isn't there?
My mom has psychotic episodes. I was even told she has schizophrenia. She looks normal and sometimes acts normal but she has always had this challenge in her life. She would take the cap off the wine bottle, fill it with wine, and make us each drink a cap full before we went to sleep at night. She told us this was medicine to keep us from getting sick. Every time she would take us shopping and the cashier would say ma'am she would make a huge scene and yell at the lady, I'm not your mom. I never had sex with your dad. Then cuss out the person really loud in front of us. She would yell at my friends and call them names, She would be in her room by herself and argue out loud. I even tried to introduce her to my Okinawan friends and they too said they couldn't understand her. She would change the conversation several times and confuse the person speaking to her. The only time I remember her physically hurting one of us was when my sister and I were skating in the house and she told us to stop and go outside. We didn't and she grabbed my sister by the hair, dragged her 20 feet and threw her out the front door. She landed about 10 feet away.
My dad didn't make it any better. He physically, mentally and emotionally abused my mom. He always yelled at her and called her names in front of us. He was a chronic alcoholic and drug abuser. It got worse as I got older. He would get drunk after work and come home yelling at my mom and hurt her. Each time I would try to stop him, he would yell at me, pick me up and throw me to the wall. My dad received over 20 dui's, even a bui...yes that means he got a ticket riding a bicycle under the influence. He would make me go with him to parties so I can drive him home. My first experience was when I was 11, he showed me how to smoke marijuana, got me stoned, then showed me how to drive his 4x4 stickshift truck. My parents lived in the same house and had their own rooms. But that didn't stop my dad from bringing different drunk women to our home to have sex with them even with my mom home. He would even introduce me to them. Who does that?
It is what we choose to remember which then dictates how we live our lives. We can choose to be victims of our "circumstances" or we can choose to embrace our experiences in life as learning opportunities.