Cherish It.

This is a non-fiction story based on my life, it starts with my earliest memory til the age of 9. It's going to be a journal like concept, biography etc. Something for me to reflect back to.

Date: (Unknown)

My Earliest Memory

 It's early morning again, I can hear Pah(Dad in Khmer) in the kitchen cooking and yelling at Sarim and Sarous for taking long showers again. I get off our bed and head for the kitchen, Pah usually greets me with a cute "Good Morning" in his Asian accent with a high pitch tone in English. Every morning Pah cooks us Babaw(Rice Porridge) with fried fish and scallion egg omelets for breakfast. I usually just like mine plain with lots of soy sauce and some fish. Pah always yells at me for adding too much soy sauce cause they're salty, but I like it. It's now 8:30 which means Mom is downstairs waiting for Sarim, Sarous, and Sokreth to be finish so she can drop them off at school. As they rush downstairs, Pah tells me to finish eating so he can give Sokcorey and I a bath. There are 5 of us, Sarim is my oldest sister, Sarous is the second oldest, Sokreth is my oldest brother and third child. Then there's Sokcorey, my other older brother and me, child number 5. After our shower Pah would get both of us dress and ready to go to school. Sokcorey is in 1st grade and I'm in Pre-K. Pah would always comb my hair, dress me and take pictures of me. He made me feel like princess and always listen to me when I sang on the karaoke machine. As we head out for school, Pah would stick candy into our backpacks so we can find them later for break time. He would walk us down to our bus stop and wait with us, Pah and I would always be dancing while waiting and Sokcorey would just be talk to our cousins who lived right up the street. Once the bus gets here, Pah would always wave bye until I can no longer see him. School was fun, my best friend who was also my neighbor Anna would always play with me. Anna was very quiet though, got really scared easily whenever it was her turn to speak. I would speak for her at times but the teacher said Anna has to do it. I remember Anna crying once because the teacher kept asking and asking, so I hugged Anna and they called her Dad in. I never liked my teacher, she always made Anna cry and I would always get in trouble for trying to talk for Anna. After school, Anna and I would say goodbye before I go on the bus. Anna's dad usually comes to pick her up, most times she would leave early too. This is usually my favorite part of the day because Pah would be waiting for me at the bus stop, it's like he never left. He would have a flower or candy in his hand all the time, I love it when Pah gives me flowers because he grows them himself in his garden. He would tuck it behind my ear and always tell me I was so beautiful. Once we get inside the house, I can smell the delicious food Pah would be cooking. Sarim and Sarous would be in the kitchen too helping Pah cook and doing their homework. Pah would change me out of my clothes and put on comfy clothes, we had to be quiet though because mom would still be asleep. Mom works during the nights and comes back home in the morning. She drives this long van with a lot of people in it, and most of them would come over on the weekends because we always have parties. The weekend is when I get to see mom the most but she's always cooking and talking to her friends, and I'm always on the karaoke machine. Whenever I sing on the weekends, Mom's friends would give me money, but Mom would take it afterwards. She said she'll put it in my piggy bank. This would be a regular day in my life, Pah always played Mommy and Mom always played Dad. I didn't take the divorce easy however, I didn't understand until I got older that they both had affairs and fell out of love with one another. Growing up, I thought what they had, what worked for them and how they made it work was incredible. They not only took care of 5 kids together, they came to a foreign country and made a living. My parents walk through fields of landmines, dodging gunshots, getting caught and using dead bodies as shields. They survive a genocide, and they did it together, so when they divorced..my heart broke apart just like my family...

Author's Note

Please ignore grammar mistakes. I'm just typing out my thoughts and memories to share it with people.