After just thrown out the rubbish and making my way back to the apartment, I all of a sudden remembered I had left a $5 note in the right back pocket of my jeans. I had done the washing the day before and had left my black pair of jeans on the rack to dry. A little worried I might have lost it because I had forgotten it for a while, my fingers touched the familiar crisp plastic-ky sheet that was said $5 note. I let out a sigh relief and had a bit of a flash back.
In a hurry on convocation day, I was trying to figure out what to do with my hair and was thinking to myself how awful it would look with hat hair after the night. Ma was ironing my black gown and piece by piece had it laid on the bed for me to put on when I was finally ready. Pa was notably more excited than I was, checking and making sure his camera had battery and was talking to himself of where we should go around the city to take photos. I on the other hand was still full from lunch and was feeling sleepy.
Pa and ma walked down with me to Storey Hall to take some photos of and with me... with my bouquet, without my bouquet, side shot, front shot, wide teeth smile, closed smile. How embarrassing I thought. There I was in full gear on the busiest street of Melbourne. But it slowly sank in and then I realised how blessed I was that my parents had dedicated a great portion of their lives working towards this for me, giving me the opportunity to further my studies in such a comfortable environment and so much more. And so I smiled, great big cheesy smiles for my pa who was snapping away with his camera with darling mama standing next to him smiling and laughing at the ordeal I was going through thanks to pa.
Finally, after the photo shoot, I had to quickly go to the stadium first and my parents back home to meet me later in the evening at the event. Ma passed me my bag and I realised I had forgotten my purse. Pa quickly said to me, "It's ok, I'll pass you some money so you don't have to worry". Here I am at 24, having been living away from my parents for the last 6 years and my 59 year old pa hands me a $5 note. Initially I just didn't like that I was taking any money from my parents. But when I saw the $5 my pa was handing to me, I thought, "$5?!" I did a quick mental calculation that a tram ticket would cost me just over $3 and hopefully the change could get me a bottle of water if necessary. Highly unlikely I thought, oh well. I quickly thanked my pa, gave them both a kiss and headed off to the tram stop.
The $5 made me feel like their little girl again. Parked just outside primary school, pa from the driver seat would lift open the middle compartment where he kept his change and rummage through for a 20 cent coin. I'll stick out my palm from the back seat, have the coin placed in my hand and I say "thank you pa" and give him a kiss on the cheek just before hopping out to go to school... 15 years later only getting a $4.80 raise. Haha! Anyways, I didn't need to use that $5 note and have had it in my back pocket every since. I'm going to keep it somewhere safe for a very very long time.
Always and forever pa's little girl ♡
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