A Cinderella Story -Truth Untold

By Cindy Joseph

Woman Up!

This should be the new phrase, redefined to represent courage and one that withstands fear. In this captivating book, Cindy Joseph shares her story, how life had beaten her up into shape to become the woman she is today – from her childhood struggles to the trials and tribulations of love and marriage. This book captures the demands of life, the uphill battle of grief, rehabilitation of the mind and discovering the strength that fuels the Power to Rise. Growing up in a small town watching her parents work a hard life, she was determined to break that cycle, but life had a different plan, it is about getting up and kicking ass after each fall. This book is about her life, made from endurance and courage, the courage to never give up and to live by her own expectations and by her own rules. Cinderella Story – Truth Untold is about life in the most authentic form, where she finds her happily ever after through self-discovery by and fighting demons. In her own words and expression, Cindy tells her story as it is, in the hopes that readers will discover the greatness within themselves to overcome the resistance of life and achieve their true purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781543774474

Cindy Joseph

Cindy Joseph comes from a humble beginning, born and raised in a small town north of Malaysia. As a first-time author, she encapsulated her remarkable journey in Cinderella Story, Truth Untold. Through absolute courage and Power To Rise, she had become an inspiration to all who seek to overcome adversity.

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A

Cinderella

Story

TRUTH UNTOLD

CINDY JOSEPH

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Copyright © 2023 by Cindy Joseph.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

CONTENTS

Acknowledgment

Preface

Once upon a Time

Ella

Twist of Life

Salagadoola Mechicka Boola

Prince Charming—Finally?

The Beginning

Building a Castle

Living with Joe and Julia

Daddy

Beating Heart

Ma

Living without Ma

Dreams of Ma

Strong

For my beloved parents:

Joseph Sebastian

Indrani Sinnappan

I have never felt love as unconditional as

yours, thank you for loving me.

You are deeply missed every day.

Jackie and Angel,

who shows me that life is worth living every single day.

Acknowledgment

Thank you.

My sisters, Carol and Lisa, who tolerate, care

for, and accept me the way I am.

Priya and Jon, who had always been there for me in the

past decade. I could never have survived the lowest and

celebrated the highest without you. The reason for my smile.

Shoba, my soul sister. One who understands and protects

me, and would never leave my side. My pillar!

Jude Pudota, my mentor, who believed in me and

showed me what a great leader looks like.

Raj Chaudhuri, who trusted and gave

me the opportunity I needed.

Jasmine, who held my hand when I needed support.

Ishwar, my brother from another mother,

days are brighter with you in my life.

Murali, for being my first true friend.

Rest well in heaven, my dear.

Preface

O nce upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a girl named Cinderella. She was a sweet, simple, courageous, and beautiful girl. Unfortunately, she needed to stay with her stepmother and two stepsisters after the death of her father. She was treated cruelly by her stepfamily and was thrown into the cold attic to sleep in. To get warmth during winter nights, Cinderella would secretly creep downstairs and lay down next to the Cinders so she wouldn’t freeze. She spent most of her days washing, cleaning, and cooking. One day, the king decided to throw a ball to find a princess for his dashing handsome prince. Cinderella desperately wanted to go but alas, she was forbidden by her stepmother for zealous reasons. She waved goodbye to all three women as they rode off into the starry night in their fancy carriage. She broke down and cried, wishing she could go to the ball. Moments later, magic happened. Her fairy godmother appeared and made her wish come true. With the wave of her magical wand, her fairy godmother turned her into a beautiful girl dressed in the most elegant and sparkling dress and with it a pair of glass slippers. Looking like a princess, Cinderella rode off into the night in her magnificently crafted carriage made out of a pumpkin.

Well, we all know what happened after that. Cinderella ended up marrying the prince, became the princess, and lived happily ever after. Well, the truth is, we don’t really know what happened after that because the book ended pretty much happily ever after.

This has been one of the most renowned fairy tales, told for thousands of years. A story that our children and our children’s children will continue to read. It is an all-time fuzzy, heart-warming story that never gets old. A story that every girl dreams of and wishes would come true for themselves.

So did Cinderella really exist?

Cinderella was a story that started off as a folktale in Egypt around 7 BC. It was about a Greek slave girl that married the king of Egypt. It traveled all over the world and settled in Italy as the very first literature by Giambattista Basile in 1634, but we most probably would recognize the famous publication by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. The word Cinderella itself is an archetypal name that simply means one who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after having to go through a string of unfortunate events, enigma, and neglect.

Knowing the origin of the story does not change the content of this book because I grapple to find similarities, in fact, there is none but only by the definition of what the name Cinderella commands.

So here’s another version, a nonfiction version and one that is transpired by true events.

If you expect to read a book that has a blue-eyed horse-riding prince, a land of magical beings, the spectacle of a damsel in distress, glass slippers that don’t shatter, or about a man saving a girl, well this is not that book. This is a story of a brown girl, one that does not fit into the images of what society perceives a Cinderella should look like. This is a story about how she turned into a full being by accepting her imperfections. It is a story about giving up, holding on, fighting, hurting, surviving, and rising again from the same ashes that burnt her.

I am here to tell a story about a life that had seen the deepest darkest pit and how that same girl had no choice but to grow claws to crawl out of the darkness, turn pain into strength, and be the very own hero she needed. This is a chronicle about a woman who had to learn that she deserved to live, deserved to be loved, deserved to breathe, and deserved to smile.

This book is dedicated to all women who had to face battles no one knew about but silently triumphed. This book is for all women!

This is my story, the story of Cinderella—truth untold.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

—Maya Angelou

Once upon a Time

B orn in 1976 in a small village up north of Peninsular Malaysia, Cinderella is the youngest of three girls. Her father, Joseph, worked as a truck driver in a government telecommunication company while Julia, her mother, was a descendant of an immigrant who worked as a housewife. Julia got married at the age of twenty-three and had her first child a year later. She had a second baby two years after and Cinderella in 1976. In a humble home, her mother went into labor in the middle of the night. There was no well-equipped hospital and no medically educated doctors to bring Cinderella into the world. There were just wet towels, a pail of warm water, a midwife, the pain, and the blood, and after a few hours, a baby girl was brought into this world. Weighing almost eight pounds, she came out completely silent, but after the famous tap to the tush, she cried like a baby, just as she should be. The umbilical cord was cut, and Cinderella was on her own.

For the first few years of her life, she grew up in a small village away from the city. The place she called home was a simple wooden house, raised on stilts above ground with a thatched roof made from nipa palm. The doors and windows were hinged with iron latch and outside of the house was a big urn made of clay that her parents used to keep their water supply. Running water and electricity in the house were available, but on some days, water tanks ran dry, and on other days, they would hear a click and the house would be enveloped in darkness. Cinderella would watch her mother bring out the candles and light a stick to brighten up each corner of the house. The flames flickered brilliance of gold and danced gracefully, basking in the glow as shapes of the furniture were discernible on the wooden wall of the house; the colors remained black and amber.

During the day, the rays of the sun would burst through the cracks of the wooden plank walls, forming different shades of tanned gold that pranced on the floor like fire fairies. When the sun finally set, amber skies turned into a black night and remote pinpricks of stars would make an appearance, looking like diamonds strewn over a black satin sheet.

When it rained, the pitter-patter of raindrops against the roof and windowsill orchestrated a symphony that brought warmth and tranquility. Raindrops would heavily plunk on the uneven roads, forming red puddles and turning the soil into soft, squashy mud. The wind would gush across the forest, murmuring its way through the rain and into their home. The first burst of air always smelled green like the forest, and the icy wind that followed would sting her skin, seeping into every pore and made her shiver. Cinderella loved the rain ever since she was a toddler; the cold weather brought tenderness into their home. Her mother would put a pot of tea on the stove, and moments after the whistle blew, Cinderella would jump with joy as her mother walk out of the kitchen with a tray of biscuits and a pot of tea. The whole family would sit cross legged on the cement floor with their cup of tea and dunk their biscuits while Sandy does the same enjoying the sound of rain and watching the golden flames from the candles flicker It was home for her and she loved it.

In the morning, sparrows and magpies would fly by their home, chirping and singing a medley, immediately lifting the spirits of folks in the village. If it was a storybook, the whole village would break out into a medley singing a song, but the reality was that the men rode off to work while the women stayed back to tend to their houses.

Cinderella was a quiet kid growing up. She hardly spoke but seemed to be thinking a whole lot. No one knew what was on her mind. She would just sit in a corner and watch, observing and staring at people. Her mom assumed it was because she was not well as a child. Diagnosed with asthma, she was often rushed to the hospital whenever she started to wheeze and gasp for air. It scared her mom a few times, especially when it seemed like she had stopped breathing and turned blue. Her parents were poor, and the only mode of transportation they could afford was an old bicycle. Having to depend on the two-wheeled ride, it was all up to her father and how fast he rode the bike. The fact that they may not reach the hospital on time worried her mother. She could lose her youngest daughter to poverty-stricken reasons, but by the grace of God, her parents had always managed to get the treatment for their little girl on time. By the time Cinderella was five years old, the attack reduced, and it eventually stopped.

The house that Cinderella grew up in for the first six years of her life was also the same house that her mother’s sisters and brothers stayed in. There were about eight people cramped under that one little roof. As the eldest in the family, her mother felt obligated to ensure that her siblings had a place to stay until they could afford one on their own. They were all adults at that time, but it was a struggle for them to earn and stay on their own. Everyone in the family had only a lower primary education or none. Illiteracy made it hard to get a decent job. Her uncles and aunts would hunt to take on some odd jobs or something part-time just so they could put food on the table. They didn’t have enough to make ends meet so they stayed together to support each other, and her mother was that strong support system that they relied on. Her mother didn’t really have a choice. In fact, one of her aunties, Jessie, went to the city to work as a maid at the age of fifteen in one of her in-law’s houses. This was a blessing to her family because it meant that she could have a place to stay, food to eat, and one less person for her mother to care for and worry about. It was hard for her parents at that time, but their only choice was to do what it took to live off the street. It wasn’t easy having to live in a small space with so many people, but on the brighter side, the house was always filled with gratitude. The house was exactly what a home should feel like—constant conversation, laughter, women in the kitchen preparing meals, men in the living room chatting about politics and sports, kids running around playing with toys, and the stereo playing hits from the ’60s. It was a fantastic medley!

There was only one bathroom next to the kitchen and one bedroom on the upper floor. The bedroom that should belong to her parents became a public space. Almost everyone slept in the same room, except for her uncles who slept in the living room. There was only one bed to fit two people which meant that the rest of the household would need to sleep on the floor. Come nighttime, the bedroom would be layered with thin mattresses, turning it into a gigantic bed for everyone to sleep in. The smoldering smoke from the mosquito coil set at the corner scented the room with charcoal and citronella. It was a scent that meant bedtime for Cinderella. Everyone at home started calling her Sandy. It became a household name but her friends, kids from the neighborhood, called her Cindy, short form for Cinderella. Even though she was a quiet little girl, she started to make a friend or two in the village. Sandy would run off soon after her mother fed her some tea and play hide-and-seek or hopscotch with the kids. She would run behind houses and hide behind stilts or banana trees to make sure no one could find her in the game of hide and seek. There were also days that Sandy would sit under the house porch to play marbles with the next-door kid or a game of Batu Seremban, a game of pebbles famous in the village. Sandy always lost track of time but would know it was time to return home when she heard her mother’s voice echoing in the village, calling out her name. Sandy would drop everything and run home as fast as Forrest Gump. She loved living in the village. It was pure to her.

Her father managed to save enough money to buy a single-story semi-detached house in a nice, friendly neighborhood. It had a fence, an iron gate, three bedrooms, a toilet, and a bathroom. It came with its own living area, a space for dining, a wet and dry kitchen, and a small backyard. Some parts of the floor were made of cement while some parts had unpolished marble. The toilet was made of tiny little blue tiles, and it came with a built-in water tub so that they could scoop water using a small bucket to bathe. There was no water heater in the house, so when it rained and the water became too cold, her mother would boil pots of water on the stove to prepare a hot bath for all her children. They now had a front yard big enough for a car, and that was exactly what her father did. He bought an old second-hand Fiat to park it in. This was a new life for Sandy. The whole family had little more space, stable electricity, an uninterrupted water supply, and a room that Sandy could share with her sisters. Her parents finally had their very own bedroom too. By this time, her uncles and aunties had all managed to stand on their own two feet. They would visit occasionally and stay a night or two, but that was pretty much it. This new, much more comfortable life came with a price. It meant that both her parents needed to do more and earn more to make ends meet. A mortgage, a car, and school fees for three children were not something they could easily afford without doing the extra to bring in the extra.

Her father started to pull a triple shift every weekday, and on weekends, he would do some electrical or plumbing odd jobs and even as much as to take the graveyard shift as a transporter. Sandy hardly saw her father when they moved to the city. She would be sound asleep when he got home, and on some days he would get home just to get ready and go out again for work. Weekends were a bit better. She got to see more of her father, but he would still be busy tending to chores or helping with the weekly grocery preparation. Despite it all, he would still take the time to spend with his daughters even if it meant for one hour. Sandy’s mother helped by taking on a few babysitting jobs. She took care of a few kids at a single time, and the house eventually turned into a day care. Sandy would stand at the entrance to watch parents drop their kids off in the morning and pick them up before the sun set. Her mother would be on her two feet, cooking and cleaning all day, be drained at the end of the evening, but hit repeat for the next day.

Sandy’s parents used whatever time they had to try and make the extra dollar or two. One day, her father decided to try out a food truck business, selling a local delicacy called passembor. This dish consisted of a mixture of prawn fritters, julienne cucumbers, turnips, deep-fried tofu, and fried vegetable cutlets smothered in hot peanut sauce topped with a boiled egg. Both savory and sweet, this local favorite was her mom’s specialty. Having a food business managed by a housewife taking care of her own three kids plus others and a man already working three jobs was not an easy stunt, but it left them with no choice. Sandy’s mom would start cooking as soon as she was done preparing lunch for her family. She would set a burner stove on the ground, put on a monstrous wok, set a three-legged stool on the floor for her to sit on, and start slaving over the stove frying up all the vegetable fritters for hours. Sandy remembered how hot the kitchen was. She could feel the heat almost immediately when she entered. Her mother was seated in what seemed and felt like a boiler room that could have easily been mistaken for producing steam to run a train engine back in the day. Her mother would have been cooking and stirring over the stove for hours before the children came back from school. Sandy could see the residue of tiredness, sweat, and oil on her face, but she would still stand up to ensure the kids were fed and taken care of, then once again continued where she had left off.

Her father would then come back from his day job at about five in the evening, hit the shower, pack all the prepared ingredients into his blue vintage Fiat car, and drive to the spot where he would set up his food stall for the dinner crowd. Back then, there was no such thing as a fancy food truck. Having a mobile food business in the eighties meant having to do so on a food tricycle. A three-wheeler custom-made vehicle that carried a food display counter made of glass placed on a stainless steel top, her father placed the pot of peanut sauce, and the remaining space was just enough to put his chopping board to assemble and pack the orders.

As a child who was in kindergarten at that time, Sandy took pride in her father. She would follow him like a puppy at any given time she got to see him, even if it meant tagging alongside him to the sundry shop which was only one minute away from their house. Everywhere she went, she would hear Anak Joe ke ni? which meant, Is this Joe’s kid? Sandy would look up at random aunties and uncles talking to her father as she held on to his hand, waiting patiently for the conversation to end.

Sandy didn’t think twice about influencing her parents to allow her to follow her father on his night spree on the food tricycle. She was only allowed to follow him for one day, and that was good enough for her. Sandy sat on the handle of the tricycle watching him while he served his customers. Anak Joe ke ni was a constant question that came from his customers, and as busy as her father was, a little curve would form on his face as he nodded his head to say yes. Her father would turn to look at Sandy and smile. She was very proud of her father, seeing him smile though deep down behind those tired eyes and hard wrinkled hands, he just wanted to rest. How this man, a hardworking man, could still stand on his two feet, strong as an ox determined to provide the best for his family. A man who never knew how to give up, unstoppable when it came to caring and providing for his three little girls. Her father sold passembor for a couple of weeks at night until he could not cope with it anymore. The perpetual hard labor became too tiring for both her parents, so they went back to their normal routine of babysitting, taking on the double shift and odd jobs.

As the pages of her life flipped from being a free-spirited village girl to a brick-borne minor living in the city, Sandy knew deep down that school was going to be tough for her. She just had a weird hunch, but she did not know why. As she celebrated her seventh birthday, her chubbiness stayed with her. It didn’t miraculously disappear like it did with her sisters. In fact, the layers kept piling on. Born into this world as a seven-pound baby meant some of it would stick with her for a while. Sandy always hoped that it would someday be gone like magic, and how her fairy godmother should wave the magic wand to take her fats away instead of giving her the glass slippers. It was time for school and Sandy dreaded it. Her father lined up for more than twenty-four hours just to ensure he was able to enlist his youngest daughter in a good school, and when he did, he was so happy and proud to tell everyone that Sandy was going to the convent. It was not the best school in the city. In fact, it was the second best, and it scared Sandy. Her first day of school was nerve-wracking, she didn’t feel she would fit in, and she missed the life she had in the village. She missed her father. She wished things didn’t have to change and that she didn’t have to grow up. Sandy was surprised that everything seemed normal for the first two years in school. She made friends, got good grades, enjoyed sports and extracurricular activities, and loved recess because she got to hang out with her new friends.

One day, as her father was getting ready for his weekly routine to the wet market on a Friday morning, she tucked her dad’s sarong and asked to follow him. If she could, she would follow him to work every single day and skip school. Sandy missed him and had only wanted to spend as much time as possible with her father.

Sandy, it is not a place for a kid to be in. There will be a lot of people, and what if I lose you?

Her mom looked from afar and shook her head indicating that Sandy should not follow him to the market. Both her sisters just looked at each other in disbelief that Sandy wanted to go to the market. It was not a usual request from a nine-year-old girl.

Dad, I am nine years old. I will just hold on to you. I just want to follow. I will not get in the way.

The next minute, she was strapped in the front seat of the car on her way to the market. She was thrilled and happy that her father agreed to bring her along, but he didn’t look quite happy. Maybe her father decided to bring her along just to stop her from whining about it. The moment she stepped out of the car, she was swarmed by people. Everyone just walked past her as if she was invisible, knocking into her and shelving her aside. She was at waist height, so all Sandy could see from where she stood were different colored pants and shorts. She could hear overlapped haggling as folks bargained on the price of clothes, chicken, and vegetables. Sandy held on to her father’s hands tightly because she realized her father was right. If she let go, she would be lost forever. This chaotic sea of people would just crush her like the waves and take her to a place where she could never be found. It scared her and her mother was right to disagree. Sandy held on to her father as she watched him fill up the blue grocery plastic basket with vegetables and fruits, trotting along like an obedient girl when all of a sudden she froze at what she saw next. She tucked her father’s hands, and he stopped to look at her. There it was, right in front of her, a little cardboard box filled with fluffy yellow ducklings chirping aimlessly in that small space they were all cramped into. She reached down to grab one of the chicks but was stopped by her father. He pulled Sandy gently so that she would continue to follow him, but Sandy freed herself from his grip and stood there stubbornly.

Sandy, come on.

Sandy looked up at her father.

Dad, can I have them? Her father was shocked by the request. He pulled her away forcefully and ignored what he just heard.

Dad, can we get them please? She started to whine.

Sandy, those are not pets. Her father was getting impatient with her as he tried to complete his list of things to buy.

Come on, we have to go, you can’t play with the ducks, he snapped.

Sandy sulked and followed him with an awful-looking face. Enough for him to notice and turn around to explain to her why he couldn’t buy the ducklings. She finally nodded with tears in her eyes, and they walked around for another thirty minutes. When the grocery basket was finally full, they started to walk back to the car. Sandy noticed the lady with the cardboard box but turned away as she didn’t want to look at them anymore. Suddenly, her father made a turn and stopped right in front of the lady with the cardboard box. He knelt next to her so that he could talk to her face to face and whispered.

My girl here thinks that these little fluffy buggers are pets. The lady started laughing.

Give me a pair please. Do you have a box they can be put in? The lady nodded.

Sandy could not believe what she just heard, her heart leaped with joy, and she let go of her father’s hand to squat next to the box and pet them. Daddy, can I choose?

She picked up two ducks and put them in the small box that the laughing lady held out in front of her. She wondered why her father changed his mind. He seemed sure about his decision a few minutes ago. Was it because of her sulking and tears that got her what she wanted, or was it because her father wanted to put a smile on her face? She didn’t mind if it was either. She held on to the box like it was her dear life and hopped onto the front seat of the car with a big smile.

Dad, can I name them?

Yes, of course. They are yours now, her dad replied.

Mac and Donald. She looked up to see his reaction. Her father was laughing at Sandy because of the names she had chosen.

Listen, your mom is not going to be very happy to see Mac and Donald. It is your responsibility to ensure that you take care of them. Your mom or I will be doing that for you. Can you?

Yes, Dad. I can take care of them, don’t worry. What would they eat?

I will get them some food. And they drove back home silently.

Sandy got what she wanted because her father needed her to learn about responsibility,