My heart was beating so fast it was like a heart attack.
My friend and I were sitting at a table, chatting and eating.
It felt like a dream.
But after a while, I noticed my friend’s face became darker.
I turned to my brother, who had also been in the restaurant, and said, “What happened?”
He replied: “They had me in a headlock.
They took my wallet, my watch, and my phone.
They told me I had to take them.”
I remember thinking, “My god, what am I doing here?”
My friend, my mother and my brother all got up and rushed out.
I was in tears.
But it was only for a moment.
As I sat there, I realized how lucky I was to have my mother’s support.
“I’m just so glad I can take care of my brothers and my mother.
She’s a strong woman,” my brother told me.
The moment was so surreal, I thought I was going crazy.
I couldn’t believe I was able to walk away from it all, knowing that my life could be saved.
It was just so surreal to know that there was another life for me in my new life.
When I told my friends, my parents and my sister, they all got emotional.
They hugged me and told me that my mother would be so proud of me.
“She’s not only the one who taught me how to cook, but also how to be a good sister and how to do her best,” my sister told me in tears, as tears were pouring down her cheeks.
“She made me a good woman.
She made me love the way I wanted to love myself,” my mother added.
The moment is still vivid in my mind.
It’s hard to describe how much my mother, who is from the Philippines, has changed my life.
She is my mother now.
My sister and I have been together for nearly 10 years, and she has given me all kinds of support.
I miss her every day.
She has my back.
I wish I could thank her for everything she has done for me.
I’m proud to be an Australian.
My mother was born in the Philippines.
She came to Australia from Malaysia in 1984 and settled in Melbourne.
She was the first Filipino Australian to go to university.
When she was 16, she married a Filipino American and their family moved to Australia.
After my mother arrived in Australia, she worked at a local pub for a couple of years.
When my mother became a mother herself, she decided to return to her homeland and become an Australian citizen.
She was born on May 26, 1978, in the town of Yogyakarta in the eastern Philippines.
My father is Filipino and my father’s wife is Filipino.
My mother was the only Filipino child of her parents.
My parents are not related to my sister and my cousin, who are from Australia.
I have two older brothers and two sisters.
There are two different versions of my mother in my family.
One is the version that I am familiar with, the version she gave me.
Another version of my mom is that she was a Christian who converted to Islam and became a Muslim.
She went to Australia to marry a Muslim man.
That’s the version I’m familiar with.
On one side, my family is from a very wealthy, conservative Muslim family.
I grew up in a very conservative household.
My dad’s religion is conservative.
I’m not religious.
My mum’s religion was conservative, too.
My aunt is a Muslim, too, and her husband is a Christian.
My brother and I are Muslims, too — and my cousins are Hindus and Buddhists.
As a kid, I had a huge crush on my older sister.
I knew she was the most beautiful girl in the world, so I thought, “Oh, she’s my idol.”
But when I was 10, she told me she was going to marry an Indonesian Muslim man, and I thought she was crazy.
She said that I would never be able to see her again.
In her mind, it was all over.
I didn’t even know it.
I thought her husband was an Indonesian Christian, too; it was a matter of pride for her to marry the man she loved.
I went to bed with my dream shattered.
Growing up, I felt that I was being abandoned by my mother because she was always told I was not good enough for her.
It became a problem for me, because I didn.
I wanted her to give me the best education, and to make me happy.
She always told me, “You’re a good girl.
You have to be happy.”
She used to tell me that she knew I was too good for her, but she loved me anyway.
It didn’t matter to her what my future was.
She would always say: “You are beautiful. You are