Dedicated to my hard-working and best daddy Namulauulu Apelu Ioasa of Lano Savai'i.

Inspired by the quote “You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving”  Robert Louis Stevenson.

I grew up in a Samoan family where I often find myself asking many ‘whys’ in my mind about many things. We go to church on Sundays and I get to sing songs with words that describe the love of Jesus and hear the preaching of biblical stories that have messages about God's love. Jesus died on the cross for our sins story is central to my church-going definition of love every day. 

But for me, going to school was the best part of my everyday life as it was a place where I could find real love, where my teacher smiled to me every day and my many friends welcomed me warmly and friendly from Monday to Friday. At home, it is about doing chores, reading the bible, doing homework, fighting with my siblings over things and getting disciplined by my mom and dad. There was nothing special for me at home, it was about every family member and I was just part of it.

Last year, I turned 10, and my parents did only a family prayer to celebrate my birthday, without a cake or anything special. I came to school on the next day with all these mixed feelings, and my friends came up with a nice gift of many goodies for my birthday. I felt so special at school that I decided to do everything to please these special friends of mine, the ones who showed and gave me what is known as love. I saw my dad and my mom being distanced from me, as I grew older, and they were more into church things and family ‘faalavelave’. Sometimes I had to do all the ‘feaus’ at home and I couldn’t feel loved for quite some time, it was a repeated lifestyle for me and school was the only place I wanted to be until something happened.

Before our final exams, my friends told me that our mathematics teacher had her door broken and we could sneak inside her room any time to peep into the exam paper. I was not sure of this but I agreed and wanted to prove my loyalty as a friend to all of them. During school assembly the next morning, I pretended to go to the bathroom and my two friends followed just to support me on the spot while three were waiting in the Assembly. I just opened the door and crawled towards the teacher’s desk, scanning the teacher’s table with my heart beating so heavily, eager to get the exam paper. When I opened the brown file, I could see the mathematical exam paper and before I flipped it open, the door opened so fast that I had to crawl backwards but it was already too late. 

“Hey, hey, who’s there? What are you doing?” My teacher had caught me holding the exam paper. She grabbed me by the arm, spun me around and yelled in my face while all the students who had just been released from the assembly were standing and staring at me in surprise. 

My only painful memory was how I was taken to the principal’s office and all my friends were distanced from me at the time, I could hear them saying the opposite of what I told the principal, the truth. They all blamed me for the actions so I felt distressed with great shame, and it was that time when I was longing to see my parents more than ever before. 

About 20 minutes later, my dad walked inside the office, and I was so confused and scared. He just walked straight towards me while I was bitterly crying and hugged me, telling me to calm down and everything would be fine. His words healed my heart and I kept saying sorry repeatedly but he just smiled and listened to the principal’s report. I felt hurt inside when my dad apologised on my behalf, he was down on his knees and blamed himself for not paying attention to my school, and maybe I was desperate for help. I cried painfully as I knew I humiliated my dad and my family in school and I let him down.

The principal and teachers released me on that day and I went home with my dad.  On our way home, I saw tears in my dad’s eyes even though I was ashamed of what I had done. He hugged me and said sorry to me as if it was his fault. I was reminded of my times with my dad when I was so little, how he protected me from harm and now his love remained. 

On that night, he came and we had a long talk about things in life, he supported me by telling me to move on and never look back to what was happening, or even care about what my friends would think. On that day, I finally understood what love is about, after all, that was given to me by my friends. I learned that “you can give without loving, but you can never love without giving”. The people around me can offer me gifts, food and many other things but without loving me, whereas my daddy’s love is so real, that even on my bad days when no one else loves me, he still does.

• Roneva Apelu Ioasa is a Year 6 student at Robert Louis Stevenson Primary School and this is her literary piece that earned her 2nd place in the Year 6 English category of the Samoa Observer Short Story competition.