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𝑺𝑬𝑬 𝑭𝑼𝑳𝑳 𝑯𝑬𝑹𝑬 👉 Full Video : Click
The scent of jasmine always reminds me of my wife, Saroeun. It bloomed profusely in our small garden, a riot of white against the weathered grey of our fence. Now, the fence is still grey, but the jasmine is sparse, struggling, much like me. I am Serei, and I am sixty-eight years old. I borrowed money from my son, and it almost destroyed his family.
It began subtly, as most disasters do. Not with a bang, but with a quiet, persistent gnawing. After Saroeun passed, a quiet dread began to settle in my bones. I was a proud man, always had been. I’d worked hard my entire life, first as a teacher, then in a small, ill-fated venture selling agricultural supplies. That venture, though, was my undoing. I’d poured our life savings into it, convinced it would secure our golden years. It didn’t. Instead, it left me with a mountain of debt I’d always tried to manage discreetly, shielding Saroeun from the full truth of its failure.
After her death, the payments became insurmountable. My meager pension wasn’t enough. I tried to sell some of her old jewelry, a few small plots of land we owned, but the market was slow, and the debt collectors were not.
One sweltering afternoon, a notice arrived. A final demand. Foreclosure on my home, the only place I’d ever truly known as mine, the place Saroeun and I had built our life, raised our son, Vanna. Panic seized me. Where would I go? How would I live? The shame was a bitter bile in my throat. My son, Vanna, was a success. He worked for a respectable firm, lived in a comfortable home with his wife, Lena, and their two bright children, Sopheak and Dara. He looked up to me, always had, believing I was the steady, reliable pillar of our family.
I paced my small living room, the wood groaning beneath my weight. There was no one else to turn to. My friends were as old and struggling as I was. My siblings, scattered across the provinces, had their own burdens. It had to be Vanna.
The phone felt heavy in my hand. I practiced the words in my head, trying to make my voice sound casual, not desperate. “Vanna, my boy, how are you?”
“Pa! I’m good. How are you doing? Everything alright?” His voice was warm, a balm to my frayed nerves, and a fresh pang of guilt.
“Yes, yes, everything fine. Just… I have a small issue. The roof, you see. It needs urgent repairs. Quite unexpected. A leak, right over the main beam. Structural, they said. Very urgent.” I hated myself for lying, for exaggerating, but the truth felt too heavy to bear. The truth of my failed business, my ongoing debt, my foolish pride.
There was a slight pause. “How much, Pa?”
“Oh, just a few thousand. Enough to cover the materials and the labor. I’ll pay you back, of course, as soon as I sell some of my old things.” It was a lie. I had nothing left to sell that would cover such an amount.
Vanna didn’t hesitate. “Don’t worry, Pa. I’ll send it over. Just tell me the amount. And don’t worry about paying me back. It’s family.”
Relief washed over me, so potent it made my knees weak. I gave him the figure, a substantial sum, enough to appease the most pressing of my creditors. “Thank you, Vanna. Thank you, my son. You are a good boy.”
I paid the debt, and for a short while, the pressure eased. But the debt was a Hydra. I had cut off one head, but two more seemed to sprout. The initial payment had only bought me time, not solved the underlying problem of my failing finances and the accumulated debt from that disastrous business venture. I was living on borrowed time, and now, borrowed money.
A few months later, another demand arrived, smaller than the last, but still beyond my means. This time, I concocted a story about a sudden, severe toothache that required an expensive, specialized procedure. Vanna, ever the dutiful son, sounded concerned. “Pa, why didn’t you tell me sooner? You must be in pain!”
Lena’s voice was in the background. I heard snippets: “…another emergency… our savings… the children’s school fees…”
Vanna returned to the phone, his voice slightly more strained. “Pa, it’s just that Lena and I were planning to replace the old refrigerator. Ours is on its last legs. But of course, your health comes first. I’ll transfer the money.”
I felt a fresh wave of shame. I was depriving my grandchildren of a new refrigerator, forcing my son to juggle his family’s needs for my fabricated emergencies. “Thank you, Vanna. I truly appreciate it. I’ll pay you back. I promise.” It was a promise I was increasingly unsure I could keep.
The cycle began to accelerate. Another month, another crisis. A broken water pump. A sudden, unexplained medical bill from Saroeun’s final days (another lie). Each time, I spun a more elaborate tale, each time feeling the fabric of my own integrity fraying. Vanna never refused, but the silences grew longer, Lena’s background whispers more distinct and less conciliatory.
I started to notice changes in them. Vanna, once so cheerful, looked perpetually tired. His eyes held a weary sadness. Lena, who used to greet me with a warm smile and a traditional sampeah, now offered a stiff nod, her gaze avoiding mine. When I visited, the house felt colder, the laughter of my grandchildren sometimes punctuated by hushed, urgent conversations between their parents that ceased abruptly when I entered the room.
One evening, I overheard them. I was in the kitchen, making myself a cup of tea, when their voices, sharp and brittle, drifted from the living room.
“We can’t keep doing this, Vanna!” Lena’s voice was tight with suppressed fury. “We had enough for the down payment. We almost had enough. Now? It’s gone. Gone to his ’emergencies’!”
“He’s my father, Lena! What am I supposed to do? Let him lose his home? Let him suffer?” Vanna’s voice was strained, laced with defensive anger.
“And what about our home, Vanna? What about our children’s future? Sopheak needs new glasses, Dara wants to go to that art class. We promised them! We can’t afford a new home, we can’t afford their dreams, because your father keeps coming up with new ways to bleed us dry!”
“Don’t talk about my father like that!”
“Like what? Like a bottomless pit? He’s supposed to be a parent, not a parasite! He has a pension, where does it all go? You never ask him, do you? You just give, and give, and give!”
The words hit me like physical blows. Parasite. Bottomless pit. It was true. I was. I was slowly siphoning away their future, their security, their peace. I gripped the countertop, my knuckles white. The tea went cold. I crept back to the guest room, my heart a leaden weight in my chest, and cried silently into the pillow. The shame was suffocating. I had not only failed myself, but I was actively destroying the happiness of the very people I loved most in the world.
The ultimate blow came a few weeks later. Vanna called, his voice unusually quiet, devoid of its usual warmth. “Pa, Lena and I are… we’re having problems. Serious problems. We’re thinking of separating.”
My world tilted. “Separating? Why? What happened?” My voice was a croak.
“Money, Pa. Always money. And… trust. She doesn’t trust me anymore. Says I prioritize your needs over hers, over the children’s. Says I’m enabling you. And I… I can’t blame her.” His voice broke. “We were saving for Sopheak’s university fund. We needed just a little more. And then you called, about the ‘urgent electrical repair’.”
My blood ran cold. The electrical repair was a total fabrication, a desperate attempt to cover yet another old debt surfacing. I had taken his daughter’s future education, her chance at a better life.
“She said… she said she can’t live with this constant uncertainty, this constant drain. She said she’s tired of fighting, tired of feeling like she’s competing with her father-in-law for her husband’s attention and resources.” He paused, a shaky breath. “She said if things don’t change, if I can’t put my family first, then she needs to consider what’s best for her and the kids.”
“Vanna, my son,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face, “I am so sorry. So, so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix it, Pa,” he said, and for the first time, I heard pure bitterness in his voice. “Sorry doesn’t bring back the money, or the trust, or the years of dreams we’ve had to put on hold.” He hung up.
The silence that followed was deafening. I sat there, the phone still clutched in my hand, staring at the faded photo of Saroeun on my nightstand. Her eyes, so kind and gentle, seemed to bore into my soul, full of disappointment. I had almost destroyed my son’s family. My foolish pride, my hidden mistakes, my selfish borrowing—it had ripped apart the very fabric of their home.
That night, I did something I hadn’t done in years. I got out all my old documents. The loan papers from the failed business, the letters from creditors, the overdue notices. I laid it all out on the table, a testament to my financial ruin. It was worse than I had allowed myself to admit. But staring at the ugly truth, the full extent of the damage, finally gave me a clear path forward. There was no more hiding.
The next morning, I called Vanna. He answered, his voice weary. “What is it, Pa?”
“Vanna, I need you to come over. And Lena. Please. Both of you. I need to tell you everything.”
They arrived, Lena’s face stony, Vanna looking like he hadn’t slept in days. I sat them down, not in the living room, but at the small kitchen table, where we had shared so many meals. I started from the beginning. The failed business. The accumulated debt. My desperate attempts to keep it a secret from Saroeun. My shame. My lies. Every single “emergency” I had invented, listing the real reasons behind each request for money. The amount I had taken from them. I didn’t spare myself. I laid bare my deepest financial failures, my pride, my cowardice.
Lena’s expression shifted from anger to shock, then a profound sadness. Vanna listened, his head bowed, occasionally running a hand over his face. When I finished, the silence was heavy, thick with unspoken accusations and pain.
“I have done a terrible thing,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I have betrayed your trust. I have jeopardized your family. There is no excuse. I am truly, deeply sorry. I see now the monster I have become, taking from you, from my grandchildren, to cover my own mistakes.”
I pushed the stack of documents across the table. “This is everything. My debts. My remaining assets, meager as they are. This house… it’s all I have left. I will sell it. Use the money to pay back what I owe you, and what I can to my creditors. I will find a smaller place, a room, whatever I can afford from my pension. I will not ask you for another cent, ever again.”
Lena stared at the papers, her eyes wide. “The house, Pa? You’ll sell your home?”
“Yes,” I said, meeting her gaze directly. “It’s the only way. My mistakes should not cost you your future, your family. I would rather live on the streets than see your marriage break because of me.”
Vanna finally looked up, his eyes red-rimmed. “Pa…”
“No, Vanna,” I interrupted gently. “Let me finish. I will work. I will do whatever I can, odd jobs, anything, to support myself. I will not be a burden. I will try, every day, to earn back a fraction of the trust I have lost.”
Lena took a deep breath. “Pa, you don’t have to sell your home.”
“Yes, I do, Lena,” I insisted. “It’s not just about the money. It’s about setting things right. About showing you, showing myself, that I understand the gravity of what I’ve done.”
The conversation that followed was long, difficult, and punctuated by tears, both mine and theirs. They didn’t accept the house immediately. Instead, Vanna, with Lena by his side, helped me navigate the true extent of my debts. They found a buyer for the house, ensuring I got a fair price, and helped me find a modest, much smaller apartment. A portion of the sale went to clear some of my debts and to repay a significant part of what I owed Vanna and Lena, though they tried to refuse it.
“This is for Sopheak’s university fund,” I told them firmly, handing Vanna the bank transfer slip. “And Dara’s art classes. Please, let me do this much.”
It wasn’t enough to fully repair the financial damage, but it was a start. More importantly, it was a gesture of honesty, of true remorse.
The months that followed were not easy. I missed my old home, the garden, the memories. But I found peace in the small apartment, stripped of the pretense of my past life. I took on part-time work at a local market, selling fruit. My back ached, my feet throbbed, but the money I earned was mine, honestly earned, and it covered my living expenses.
My relationship with Vanna and Lena slowly, painfully, began to mend. Lena, initially wary, started to relax around me. She saw me working, living humbly, no longer making excuses. She saw me taking responsibility. She saw me truly trying.
Vanna, still scarred, began to confide in me again. They didn’t separate. They fought through it, drawing closer in their shared pain and their eventual understanding. They had had to postpone their plans for a new house for a few years, and Sopheak’s university fund was still recovering, but they were together, and they were healing.
When I visit now, the house doesn’t feel cold anymore. Lena greets me with a tentative, but genuine smile. Vanna still looks tired sometimes, but the bitterness is gone, replaced by a quiet strength. The children, Sopheak and Dara, still run to hug me, their innocence a painful reminder of how close I came to destroying their joy.
I often sit in my tiny apartment, looking at the struggling jasmine plant I brought with me from my old garden, a single white blossom bravely pushing through. I borrowed money from my son, and it almost destroyed his family. The wounds are not entirely healed, the trust not fully restored. Some scars remain, a testament to the cost of pride and hidden mistakes. But we are still a family. We learned, the hard way, that true wealth lies not in money, but in honesty, sacrifice, and the unbreakable, sometimes painfully tested, bonds of love. And I, Serei, am working every single day to earn my place back among them, one honest day at a time.
This work is inspired by real events and people, but it has been fictionalized for creative purposes. Names, characters, and details have been changed to protect privacy and enhance the narrative. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
The author and publisher make no claims to the accuracy of events or the portrayal of characters and are not liable for any misinterpretation. This story is provided “as is,” and any opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not reflect the views of the author or publisher.
