The Unbroken Family
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind.
But not all family is created equal. Just like where nobody's perfect, family comes in all sorts of forms and sizes, with unique experiences and situations. Where everyone tries to please everyone and end up disappointing people who love to criticize, the family as the basic unit of society is no safe from all kinds of judgment. As people live a daily routine thinking and talking about people, even the family's kept secrets are revealed. When you grow up in a village, where people seem to know everyone, you also get used to neighbours knowing your life story.
While most broken families end up totally wrecked and hating each other, I am still happy that we have remained a loving and peaceful family. I tell you, we’re not perfect, my sister and I are no Barbie Dolls and our family’s drama could cause way much tears than those featured drama anthologies on tv. Yes, we have never seen our parents’ quarrels but their silence has only meant respect despite their differences. I knew before I even turned five, that I have to learn how to go to school by myself, and that I needed to be strong for my younger sister Amay as I had to be the strong. I learned how to find strength from my brothers examples.We’ve gone through the rough roads, but slowly we patched things up. We siblings have gone through a lot of asking God why it had to happen to our family, we’ve done our different versions of rebellion to catch our parent’s attention but today, I am very proud to say that we have accepted the situation in the most critical periods of our lives and that we have learned to deal with the problems together. I am thankful that despite all the obstacles; we’ve succeeded, we remained intact and the hurdles of the past, we all used to our advantage. Early on, we learned how to live strong and not easily shaken; and that we were confident that we have each other to lean on; we have each other to fight one another. We emerged as winners of our lives’ challenges; we continued to stay positive and share the love and happiness that we may not have fully felt during our childhood.
I am saddened now that most juvenile delinquent are getting younger and they all seem to have the same story –unloving and broken family. I can’t blame them fully, nor would I put the fault to the government. To be able to survive all the hardships life may throw upon us, we must all learn how to find love in the unloving, how to be truly happy from within, and how to become thermostats instead of thermometers. Yes, we all need to learn how to change our mood and attitude towards the awful situations; and not allow the situation to crush us, bend us and break us. Love can always glue us back together, our broken hearts can be glued together to love again. The boulevard of broken dreams can be walked to again for there is never ending journey of dreaming.
I would like to shoutout my special thanks to my brothers and sisters for sticking with me through this road of career confusion I’m undergoing. They remained my allies. They remained my confidante, my reality checkers and they still give the sound advice. As for dad, his silence just keeps reminding me that I need not fear and that he’s always ready to listen and mom, she just knows and feels everything that is best for us. Though apart, we are always together as a family, no one gets left behind, no one gets to be misunderstood, everyone is part of the bug hug.
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