The Importance of Family

By Jack Chui

Its been many weeks since my trip alone to Malaysia/Singapore but this shows how far the backlog of my thoughts are which I've yet to share. This will likely be the last one around the trip.

I spent only one week overseas, and one word themed it all - Family. I was very lucky to stay with 3 different families, all of which were my cousins. I saw how their families went about things and I really appreciated their hospitality. They treated me like I was a very special guest - its the sort of treatment that I'm not used to by people other than my parents. And this coming from people --- well 'family' that I hardly see. For some of these families I stayed with, the time I spent with them, was more than the time I had spent with them in my life till then. They encourage me to also open my house in kindness and hospitality to others in my family in a way they opened theirs to me.

I got to see how there's a different relationship between people in a family. I'm an only child and so there's only 3 relationships in my family, 1. me and my dad, 2. me and my mum, 3. my mum and my dad. Its quite simple. It gets a lot more complicated when you progressively add more people in the direct family (I could explain the maths that the number of relationships is n*(n-1)/2 but that's for my maths class =P) and its quite amazing how each relationship is so different even though similar people are in the family. Its so rich the depth of these of these relationships and as large and complex as some families were, I've learned to just appreciate the simple yet rewarding relationships that I have in mine. Perhaps one day if and when I have my own family I can truly experience the rewards and complexity --- for now it was just an honour to witness them from inside their homes.

I was able to share deeply with my host families even though I have not had many contact hours with them compared to my friends. There's this automatic trust, partly because its difficult for them to contact my family back home but I think its because they already know half my story. I was determined to make the most of the short time I had there, and I'm really glad that we were able to be open to each other. My older cousin told me of how much she valued extended family like cousins, because they will be there for you especially when friends can't be. They are the backbone of when it comes to weddings, funerals, celebrations and new births. It makes me really value the relationships that I had with my cousins as I grew up - that I was lucky to grow up with cousins around the same age and share so much together.

Unfortunately, the relationships that I have with my closer cousins in Australia have somewhat fallen a bit because of distance, lack of time and just being busy with their own families and work. I have failed to keep up relationships too for the same reasons. Its kind of sad that we don't really celebrate events like Christmas, Easter and CNY like we used to. I would like to change this... so I make the effort to fly to my native country for my cousin's wedding. Its the fruit of the love they have shown me and my family each time they travel to Australia and when we are back in Malaysia. Distance is a barrier I want to break down that prevents me from being there for family. I thought it used to be the money that was the barrier, but I think more so, the barrier is time. Do we make time to spend with family and outside family? Everyone is working now and there's only 4 week of leave...

I heard a nice saying which a friend shared with me which I think is so true:

Time, Money and Energy - we never seem to have all three

When we're young, we have time and energy, but no money

When we're middle aged, we have money and energy, but no time

When we're old, we have time and money, but no energy...

I guess family is very important for me. I think I feel it most when my family is very small and so cousins are my closest people to brothers and sisters to me. I am very blessed to have the family relationships that I have and I pray that we can all grow them because they are the easiest reflection of God's love for us through other people.