before i was even born, my grandfather already got addicted to smoking cigarettes.
i don't know when it originally started, but i've heard from my grandmother, she met him in that state. i remember since i was just a child, he'd go through at least 2 packs in a day, every single day.
smoking made him lose his temper easily. he used to beat us up (me, my grandma, uncle and aunts). most of the time, he didn't even have any reason to. he could just hear us laugh in the living room as we watched the television and he would instantly be livid.
his beating of his own family became so often that i started to fear talking to him or even being near him at all. whenever he would raise his voice just a little higher than normal, i would immediately run upstairs and lock myself in the nearest room. he would call out to me and make me come out, trying to console me.
i still found him terrifying.
he used to pick me up from middle school everyday and we would go to the market to buy ingredients for my grandma to make dinner with. i was often hungry after school. i would ask him to buy me some snacks from the convenience store right across the market.
during my entire childhood, we were so poor, we didn't have enough money to spare for extra food or anything else, really.
the economy in the philippines was and still is nowhere near as great as canada's. on top of that, my grandparents didn't work, so it was my aunts who used to bring the bread to the house.
my grandpa would get mad at me whenever i annoyed him about the snacks i wanted. sometimes, i can still feel his tight grip on my wrist as he dragged me to the tricycle terminal to go home right after we finished buying groceries. his arms would shake, his eyes would grow so wide and his face all the way down to his neck would be red. he breathed so harshly; you could see his veins popping out.
be that as it may, i was also vexed because he would use part of the grocery money my aunt gave him, to buy his packs of cigarettes.
then once we arrived home, that's when he would start yelling at me and take off his belt. it became so normal and happened so often that whenever i felt his hands in my hair and the cold leather belt on my skin, it's as if my soul would leave my body and i'd go completely numb.
sometimes, i never even realized it was over, he's tired and he had left me lying on the floor for hours.
it's been such a long time since then, but when i smell cigarette smoke anywhere near me, i get nausea and the urge to vomit.
my grandfather's hands and smell are as familiar to me as my shadow.
quite a few times at work nowadays, my co-workers lightly hit each other as a joke. but whenever they do it to me, i flinch.
they ask me if i'm okay and i have to say that i am.
