How a family is supposed to be

How a family is supposed to be

During the Chinese New Year break, my mother and I traveled to Chiang Mai for our vacation, an experience unforgettable to me as it made me realized something I never had before. We went to stay at our cousin's place, whom I've never met before and my mother only met once decades ago.
Our estranged cousins, the father Tum, is a gaunt looking fifty something year old man who walked strangely (I later knew he lost one leg after an infection from soccer and had to be decapitated), and his wife Timm who was a local Chiang Mai woman whose smile makes your day. They have 3 children together, the two eldest ones where girls Fon and Fa and the youngest, Unn, a boy who suffers from autism.

When we arrived at the Chiang Mai airport, they greeted us warm and welcomingly, as if we'd always known each other, giving us sincere smiles and affectionate hugs. I was very surprised, as I've never experienced such genuine gestures in my entire life. All I'm used to was the busy city life where people don't have time for anything, let alone anyone, especially fake smiles, awkward silences and people who calculate for effect in everything they do.

Tum owned one of the many chains of 'Suthep Photo' around Chiang Mai, as part of the family-run business. His wife, Timm is probably one of the hardest working mom and housewife alive, partly because her husband is a handicap so all the pressure was on her. Her typical day starts with driving her husband to their photo shop early in the morning to operate the place, followed by sending her daughters and son off to different schools, and finally returning home to start with the housework. During my stay there, I saw their lives and I knew it wasn't a glamorous or a convenient one.

Every member in their family appears to be busy, Tum running his own store, Timm doing her part for the family, the eldest daughter in her first year of university life, the younger sister experiencing her first love and the son struggling to help himself in basic necessities everyday. Yet, they still found time for each other. Although they face many debilitating obstacles in their lives such as the handicap leader of the family and their ill brother, they still managed to find love, happiness and forgiveness. Never once did any member of the family expressed impatience or frustrations over Unn's sometimes inappropriate behaviours, they only laughed about it and talk to him as if he was just like the rest of us. Apparently, they have a very honest, open and healthy relationship.

Once when Timm was driving us and the rest of the family up to the Chiang Rai, further north of Thailand without Fon, she said, "When one of us is missing, we wouldn't like to go places, we don't like it because we miss the other person so much, we feel incomplete when we're all not together. Her words strike me, I realized I don't have a family, not the one they have anyways. My family was never together for as long as I remember. I honestly don't have any memories of my parents, my sister and I being as a family together and enjoying each other's company.

I've always thought I was strong, and that I'm not in anyway emotionally affected by my parent's divorce. I was wrong, so wrong I am in every way affected by it but I just refused to acknowledge the fact that I'm hurt and disappointed, scared that it would make me seem weak.
The relationship and love they share was beyond what I believe was real, as if I was watching their lives through the television screen. I was so taken back, smothered by half filled jealousy and remorse but at the same time, happiness for them. Seeing their lives opened my eyes up to new possibilities, yet I also know I've never experienced such love and care and probably never will, because my life have been completely different from theirs.

I could easily fool and convince myself into believing that such relationships were unreal but it isn't. They are not the perfect family, they don't have everything they want but they share that something, the bond that keeps them together, as a family.. When they have that kind of relationship, it seems to me as if nothing else really matters in the world for them as long as they've got one another. It did not matter to them that their breadwinner walks on one leg, or the fact that their house is filled with unwanted junk or that their little brother goes to a special school for the disabled. Their family is obviously not a perfect one, looking back at my own life I have so much more comfort and convenience compared to them. What I don't have like they do, is a family

I look back at my life and I know, I just know, how much I'm missing out. My family, are broken up, ever since forever, my father, my mother, my sister and I. We've always lived apart either separated by houses or country boarders. We never learn to miss one another or appreciate one's presence, we took it all for granted. We are never together as a whole, so being incomplete as a family was nothing out of the ordinary. We don't show affection, we don't say the sweet words, we don't even try as if we fear rejection. We learn to be by ourselves, faced our problems alone, independence, maybe thinking it will make us stronger. The truth is, it breaks us from the inside.