The gift of family

This Christmas was a nostalgic experience for me, and most probably for those who belong to the baby boomer generation like me – those born between 1946 and 1964.

- MARIANNE GO

This year I spent a four-day Christmas reunion with my husband's family in Bulacan as the remaining members of his uncle and aunts from a big family of 15 siblings have now been whittled down to five, and they therefore chose to reunite as the passage of time and distance make it increasingly hard to gauge if they will still be able to travel to visit each other in the future.

My mother's own large family of nine siblings are all gone now, with my last uncle's death just this year. Most of my uncles and aunts' children had moved abroad to the US and Australia early on. Thus, it has been decades since we had any big reunions, as cousins who had moved are no longer able to share that family kinship, choosing to raise their families in their chosen country. Any reunions were limited, brief and incomplete, with time and cost always a barrier to planning one big grand reunion to acquaint ourselves with the newest members.

Fortunately, in the case of my husband's maternal family, an uncle with a successful international career was able to focus on his siblings and cover a large part of the cost of any reunions the family regularly had through the years, even as some settled in the US. But like most families, the passage of time has seen the demise of brothers and sisters, leaving only five. However, even for this reunion, only one sister was able to come home, as one aunt had to attend to family business in the US. The reunion was limited to four siblings and a couple of cousins.

The reality, even here in the Philippines, is that families are increasingly losing connection as we all pursue careers, businesses, goals, dreams and illusions. Even misunderstandings, as time immemorial has shown, also get in the way of family gatherings. Of course, the biggest factor is the cost of the reunion.