They say blood is thicker than water. I can't agree any more with that. I realised that everytime I visit my blood grandmother, there's this sense of yearning to be closer to her, even though she doesn't know my name, doesn't recognise my face, and only knows me as her grandson after I identify myself as such. Granted, I do get angry that she doesn't even know me, and I have to introduce myself to her year after year during Chinese New Year. But the strange thing is that I still feel a sense of closeness to her and her family. Although this is not to say that I am not close to my adoptive grandmother. I am definitely closer to her as compared to my blood grandmother, for instance. And I definitely won't be ungrateful to her for all that she has done for us.

On the other hand, there's this special kind of closeness that I get when I'm around my aunt and her family who brought me up when I was young. This special feeling is something I experience more often when around them than around my family. Of course I'm not saying that I'm further away from my family or anything, it's just that there's something special, that little extra that I feel sometimes when I'm around them. How puzzling, for this directly contradicts what I feel in the above case.

I can't say much except for the fact that my family life is unique, and I don't feel shortchanged from it. On the contrary, I think I should feel blessed that I'm able to experience such a myriad of family ties and bonds. Chinese New Year is indeed unique and important to me for it gives me time every year to ponder over family bonds such as these.

Labels: Life, Musings

|| posted by Kuan Hui