No Beginning: I Don’t Know Where I Was Born

 I don’t know exactly where I was born.

That’s the first truth of my life.

Most people can point to a place. A hospital. A home. A village.
I can’t.

My story doesn’t begin with a clear location.
It begins with uncertainty.

My Mother

I don’t remember my father.

Not really.

There is only one memory. My mother once took me to see him. I was very young. I don’t remember his face clearly, but I remember one thing.

He had only one arm.

Someone told me he lost it during the war.

That was the first and last time I saw him.

After that, it was just me and my mother.

She raised me alone in Phnom Penh.

Sugarcane and Survival

My mother sold sugarcane juice on the street.

That was how we lived.

I don’t remember the details of every day, but I remember the feeling.
Heat. Movement. People passing by.

She worked hard.

Not because she had a choice, but because she had me.

At that time, I didn’t understand what she was carrying.

I was just a child.

When Everything Shifted

In 1997, things changed.

There was political instability in Cambodia. Life became uncertain. People were moving. Adjusting. Trying to survive.

My mother made a decision.

She took me to Poipet, near the border.

That place became a turning point in my life, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.

A New Family, A New Distance

In Poipet, my mother met another man.

He became my stepfather.

Later, she gave birth to my half-brother. That was around the year 2000. I was about five years old.

We were still poor.

Life didn’t suddenly become easier.

If anything, it became more complicated.

The Leaving

Because of poverty, my mother had to go to Thailand to work.

She said it was temporary.

She said she would come back.

She left me with my stepfather and my little brother.

I didn’t understand what “temporary” meant.

I just knew she was gone.

The Change I Didn’t See Coming

Something changed while she was away.

I didn’t see it happen.

I didn’t hear the decision.

But I felt the result.

She didn’t come back.

Instead, she asked my grandmother to take me.

Just like that, my life shifted again.

Moving to Kampong Thom

I was taken to Kampong Thom.

That’s where my grandparents lived.

That place became my home.

A Childhood Without Technology

Life there was simple.

No phone.
No internet.
No messages.

If someone wanted you, they called your name.

Loud enough for the whole area to hear.

I spent my days outside.

Playing with other kids.
Running through fields.
Swimming in the river.

We stayed out until sunset.

And when it was time to eat, my grandmother would stand at the house and shout my name.

That was enough.

What I Miss

I didn’t know it at the time, but those were the only days in my life that felt… complete.

Simple. Free.

No pressure.
No confusion.
No fear about the future.

Just living.

I still think about those evenings.

The sound of my grandmother calling me.
The feeling of running back home before it got dark.

There was nothing special about it.

But somehow, it was everything.