Why I’m No Longer Mad at My Foreigner Dad Who Left Me 18 Years Ago
By: Lc Chan
Tags: Dads, Family, Heartbreak, Moving On, Love

My Mom was just this simple country girl who just turned 20 and worked at a cinema theater when she first met my Dad who was 31 at that time. My Dad is a Hong Kongnese who worked as an experts in garment industry. Long story short, he was hitting on my Mom hard and in the end they eloped to Hong Kong to got married and went back to Indonesia as Mr. and Mrs. My Grandmother took it hard because for Indonesian, marriage is a religious act; there is no legal interfaith marriage here and because my Mom married an agnostic-random-Chinese-guy, she was considered to be in an adulterous relationship which is a big sin in Islam.

Then 1 year later, my simple-minded Mom took a precaution and ‘divorced’ my Dad on paper just because she didn’t want her future children to be non-Indonesian (Indonesian law at that time stated that the child’s nationality followed his father’s citizenship). So, by the time I was born, the state saw me as illegitimate child, and put only my Mother’s name on my birth certificate. But yeah, the divorce was suppose to be a ‘loophole’ for my Mom to gain full control to her children, she didn’t expect that my Dad will eventually leave her for real.

2 years after me, my sister was born and we were still a family. I didn’t recognize it at first, but when my Dad was still around, I remember my Mom used to unconsciously implanting thought in my head that ‘being anything rather than Indonesian is a big shame’. Little did I know, it grew inside me so strong and made my little mind ashamed of me being Chinese and looked like Chinese.

One time when I was just turned 5, my Dad was talking on enrolling me to this fancy international school where the majority of the students are Chinese. My Mom was baffled and put me away for some times at my aunt’s house in another town. She didn’t want her children to ‘grow apart’ from things that she understands. After 2 months of ‘hiding’, my Dad found out and picked me up immediately. My Mom said all the made up bad things about the school my Dad picked to me and made me scared and refused to be sent there. I ended up enrolled in an ‘Islamic school’ which my Mom picked in short notice.

My Dad travelled for work quite often, so when he actually left us, I didn’t quite get it until a few month later he was still not coming back. I was so scared to ask my Mom and just kept my mouth shut. After a year or so, my Mom started dating another guy (who happened to be someone else’s husband) and I loathe them for it. In my 8 year old mind I believed that my Dad will go back someday, because from my narrow perspective it seemed like impossible for parents to abandon their children.

Then when I turned 9, without telling me nor my sister, my Mom got married to this guy she dated (yes, it is possible for a guy to be married to more than one woman in Islam). I was so shocked, devastated, disappointed, and full of rage toward my Mom. The night after her wedding, she saw me crying hard and shouted at me, “Your Dad left you, he doesn’t care about you any longer.”

I still remember vividly about that scene; it traumatized me forever.

But I didn’t have the knowledge on how to resent a mother at that time. So I tried to channel that anger toward my Dad. In my thought at that time, leaving a child behind is the cruellest thing ever, you’re not suppose to leave your family at any cost. I grew up with so many wrath inside me, it matured me prematurely, but also damaging me to the very core.