Growing up, whenever someone asked me which parents I am closer to, I would say none, but it wasn’t always this way.
I remember my dad being my hero when I was growing up. Some of the fondest memories I had of me spending time with him was when he took half day leave so that he could spend some time with me after the exams.
We went to SPCA and had dinner together but then he had to go back to work, and I remember feeling very sad. Or when my dad brought me out to watch Night At The Museum on a school night despite my mother’s protests.
I had just entered secondary school and it was hard to spend time alone with him, so I was elated. I remember one scene in the movie where the son of the main character blames his father for not spending enough time with him. I resonated so much with that, and I cried.
However, as I grew older, I became more rebellious, and our relationship soured because of that. I also felt that I wasn’t receiving the support and love from my dad.
He never went for any of my choir concerts back in secondary school. I remember feeling super disheartened and left out when my friends’ parents would be giving them gifts and taking photos backstage. I was just alone.
I started acting out and got even more rebellious, making our relationship worse. As I entered Polytechnic our relationship was fraught. Though I would talk to my dad, I wouldn’t share any of my problems with him. I just kept them all in.
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My parents filed for divorce when I was in my first year of Poly. It happened very suddenly, and I didn’t have the time to process it. I was grieving over the changes that happened, yet I felt there wasn’t anyone I could really talk to about it.
After the divorce, I went to stay with my dad. I wasn’t given a choice back then, but I think even if I had the choice I would rather not follow either parent.
There were so many changes after the divorce, we no longer had any celebrations together. My mother was usually the one to organize gatherings. This all stopped after the divorce happened.
After my family stopped meeting up for celebrations, I suddenly felt like Singapore was a ghost town during Chinese New Year with all the shops closed. Sure, the streets are always deserted during that time of the year but now, it hits different. What hurt the most was the nagging feeling of loneliness when everyone else was celebrating and having reunion dinners with family and friends.
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After the divorce, I got very angry at myself and at my parents. I felt that my idea of family was torn apart so when I got to know about a camp to help youths champion for family unity, I was curious and decided to volunteer.
There were a few series of family talks that happened and I was touched. I felt that the experience was a healing process for me that kickstarted a series of attempts to reconcile with my dad which I previously thought could only happen through some divine intervention.
I took the initiative to ask my dad out that following week and we decided to drive to JB and it brought back many memories of the times I had with him. I missed those lame jokes that he would make and how I would still end up laughing at them.
Recently there were some changes that happened and having to work from home didn’t make it any better. I found myself having heated arguments with my dad and I would say a lot of nasty things to him. Coupled with the fact that I had just started a new job, it was very stressful for me, at the time I found myself dreading my dad coming back home for it would start another quarrel.
Every time a fight occurred, I would go to bed angry but at the same time, I would also feel remorseful, regretting all the nasty things that I had said only for the same thing to happen again the next day.
However deep down I knew something was different as in the past, I would never feel remorseful when I said nasty things to my dad. In fact, I would just be boiling in rage. I also knew that I wasn’t ready to lose my dad as I still cherish those moments I had with him when I was younger.
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One takeaway I had from the camp was that relationships take effort to build up and even though there will be disagreements and quarrels that happen, it takes strength, courage and a lot of love to restore the relationship between two individuals.
I wouldn’t say that reconciliation is an end goal but rather a growing process of learning to tolerate and compromise. I’m not going to lie, my relationship with my dad may be far from perfect and I would still have wishful moments of nostalgia. Something I recently learned though is that though I can't change the past but I have the choice to write my own future and I long for the day when we can learn to live together amicably.
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*Author’s real name has been changed in this article
