The man named Dollar

by Melissa McCabe (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Cambodia

Today I met a man and I also met a boy. The two told me their stories. About knowledge. About dreams. About loss. But above all about life. The boys mother, a widow and a warrior. A victim of the Cambodian Genocide that occurred between 1975-1979. A time not too distant, a mere 40 years. This woman I do not know, nor will ever meet. Yet the image of her as the boy speaks to me is burned into my mind. Her grief is his grief, forever. Although he was not yet in existence, at that time only a spirit in her womb. Before he had even entered this world, his life stained, tainted by loss. Six. Six of his family taken from him, taken from his mother. Before he could learn the words brother and sister, nana and poppa, aunty and uncle. Everyone massacred by the Khmer Rouge. His mother stands in the rice fields, as their murderers walk towards her. “Why are your eyes red? Do you weep for your children we killed in the night?” “No.” She lies to survive. “There is a bug that has flown into my eyes.” Years later, the boy sits with his mother, as she finally projects the painful memories of the past, he listens patiently as blood-stained rivers wash over his thoughts, learning about real darkness for the first time. The boy grows older, his father, a wise man, teaches the boy how to provide, how to yield and harvest the crops and use the land to take care of each other. Still a teenager when his father falls ill with cancer, calls him to his bedside. I don’t know how many words were exchanged in that moment, nor how heavy the silence fell. It was this moment his father had been preparing him for his whole life. A moment I think all parents hope to have with their children. A moment no child truly believes will come. Then one day it arrives. To say goodbye. To tell you how much they loved you. To leave one last lesson. One last memory. The boy knew that he had to take care of his family now, until the end. His mother and his siblings were all each other had now. Though extremely poor the boy was resourceful, he grows into quite the character. He teaches himself to read and speak English, hanging around bookstores for hours to get a glimpse of words on paper, words so foreign but which he longs to understand. Books he could by no means afford. He begins practising, conversing those words on banana trees, and water buffalo, anything that will listen really. The young boy doesn’t go on to get a scholarship at a fancy college. This is not one of those stories. The boy works. He works, and he works, and he works. He farms the lands and sells the produce at the local market and his earnings go to the family. He starts picking glass and rubbish off the street which he sells to the recyclable businesses and his earnings go to supporting the family. He gets another job working at a restaurant and the money is for food for the family. He saves up enough money to buy an old tuk-tuk and this is an avenue that provides a little more income than ever before. Now a man. A self-taught entrepreneur English speaking Cambodian man. He sits next to me on the bus. He has the calmest aura I have ever felt resonate. He is smiling. Through everything that’s happened. He smiles. The boys mother, well he did what his father asked, he took care of her. One morning, he gathered his family. With a blindfold he led her to a door, as she opened it, with the House deeds in his hands he hands her the house deed. “You don’t have to work anymore mama, this is your home, and you can rest now.” The man and the boy, both staring back at me on the bus. I see both of them in this moment. He says to me "through our suffering, we can always give, and we can always love."