The Ties That Bind Us

There are many things that bind a family together. Apart from the usual family things, there are small things that hold together our conversation and help us avoid those awkward moments during dinners. For instances, my Father’s sense of humor made us one of the most envied family when we grew up. It is our shared love for music, especially Southern Gospel/ Country Gospel music that keep my conversation going with my big Brother. On the other hand, Robert Ludlum keep us going with my other Brother.

All of the above are shared interest, so how about personal troubles. Sometimes situations like death, personal tragedy and other unusual situations make us stronger. The troubles one is going through, the problem the other faced, trials and humiliation, etc, can all be the bridge to a much stronger family.

As I often said, my family is far from dysfunctional even thought there are many resemblances. But these past few weeks had turned our world topsy-turvy and I’m no longer sure what is going-on in my family. The most unlikely situations took place, and totally changed our stands.

A few weeks ago, my big brother went through a nightmare, that too publicly. I thought this could be the end and feared he will never recover from it. But I thought it wrong, not only he comes out much stronger, the whole family comes out much stronger.

When it comes to big brother, we always put him in a different category, because he’s a little more adventurous than the rest of us. But when it comes to this ‘nightmare’, we were more outraged than him. We called each other and consoled each other. We talked like we never talked before, and we discussed things like we never discussed things before, and we all realize that he had been our inspiration all along.

I often thought he is the one responsible for breaking my family apart, and putting us in the situation where we are now, and I’m blubbering not without justification. But he’s the central of our universe right now and I pray he will do so in the future as well.

There are other changes, positive changes that are nothing sort of ‘miracles’ happening in my family after that ‘nightmare’, but I’m not going to this easily give-up my ‘pessimism’ tag, so I’m going to ‘wait and watch’ before I holler about them.

Still, I’m happy. We are far from the prefect family, but we all are happy with the way things turn out. It will sound a little ironic or apt to say ‘thank you’ for this ‘nightmare’, but I definitely am thankful for the changes it brought about.

T h a n k Y o u ! ! !