The importance of family and why reunions matter

IT was Winston Churchill who said: “There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues … are created, strengthened and maintained.”

I have also heard it said that having somewhere to go is home. Having someone to love is family. And having both is a blessing. Being a family means you are a part of something very wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life.

If you are like me, you have family scattered halfway around the world, and the only time you see all of them together at home base – be it Kuching, Sibu, Miri, or wherever your matriarch or patriarch resides today – is when a big important event occurs; usually it’s an important birthday, a wedding, or a funeral.

It is good that I still see the restaurants, eateries, and shopping complexes packed with family gatherings celebrating prime festive occasions of the Lunar Chinese New Year, Qingming, Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Gawai Dayak, and Christmas. Most overseas family members return to home base for such festivals.

But the big family reunions nowadays are few and far in between. It’s mainly due to the heavy daily routines and schedules of those still in the rat race – family members still making a living for themselves. Flight bookings are horrendously expensive during the peak festive seasons; annual leave and holidays need to be adjusted for children’s educational schedules. It’s a wonder that big family reunions can still be planned and organised successfully!

In my case I have family members scattered from Zurich to Newcastle, from Dundee to Singapore, from Johor Bahru to Kota Kinabalu, and beyond. The last time we were all back together for an important occasion was my dad’s 90th birthday and that was over three years ago. Probably the next time will be in two years’ time when he hits 95!

Once in a while I do come across in the newspapers that a particular clan, for example the Chan clan in Kuching, or the Lau clan in Sibu, having organised a massive international clan gathering in their home base. From experience I know that such endeavours would have involved at least a year or two of prepping, meetings, and organising. It would have meant a full force executive working committee of many members sitting through countless meetings through months and weeks of hard work and planning – all for free of course, and finally being rewarded with a huge success at the end of it.

I say bravo and I earnestly admire and congratulate all such efforts. I am sure quite a number of such huge family clan gatherings are being organised or planned right now as well.

Those are the huge gigantic affairs which tend to be more impersonal and act as public-relations exercises for those from one single clan. What I am specifically on about here are the more intimate and close family reunions involving the inner circle of parents, and their children, and children’s children.

I also realise that not all families are close-knit. Some are more than others. There are a lot of issues at play here: I know of families whose siblings do not even speak to each other, of those whose parents have disowned them, or even vice-versa! The proverbial black sheep of the family is not a rarity either. The unbalanced economic welfare of each family member comes into play as well. There are cliques and everyone has their own favourite brother, sister or nephew or niece.

But putting all this aside, there’s also that popular saying that you can choose your friends but you are stuck with your family.

Family reunions and gatherings are greatly encouraged, in my humble opinion. We all must make an extra effort to make time for such quality family bonding – even if it’s just for a long weekend, say from a Friday afternoon to a Monday midday flight departure. How difficult is it to tear yourself away for a three-night and four-day short holiday to have a break from the hustle and bustle and toil and tarry of your full work schedule? How many more years left do you have to be able to spend some quality time with your folks, be it just one surviving parent, an older brother or sister?

Speaking for myself, a baby-boomer, I am already approaching the ‘golden years’ to be polite (or the twilight or sunset years for the realists).

You may ask or tell yourself. What is there for us to do? What is there left to say to each other? Your folks may be senile or already entering early stage Alzheimer’s, or afflicted with bad hearing or poor eyesight. Would it really matter? How much can they understand or can they even hear or see me or know that I’m even there?

Believe me, from my personal experience, it matters. It matters a lot.

Even elderly folks in a coma, from scientifically proven cases, can know and hear you from within their comatose situation: many such cases have been documented.

Elderly folks are always lonely for company, for companionship, for relatives and friends to talk to or just to sit there with them. We should all make that extra effort to return to see them at least once or twice a year – just to be around them, bring them out for a meal or two, or even just to sit and talk with them. It doesn’t take a lot of effort and you’ll find it very rewarding from what you see in their eyes when you depart. That’s the time that they usually think to themselves if they’d ever see you again.

Friedrich Nietzsche put it this way: “In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.”

Personally I have always loved this passage from the Bible, in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Can we all say Amen to that?