Family Ties

On Tue, my family (my cousin, my hubby and Beth) drove from Hoppers Crossing to Moonee Ponds to attend a funeral.

The lady who passed away was my "cheet chim poh" (7th grandaunt), my granddad's half brother's wife.

Our families weren't close.

When I was growing up, we met only once a year during Chinese New Year.

As a child, I remember those occasions as something to dread rather than delight in.

The extended family liked to descend upon my grandma's place on the first day of Chinese New Year.

They would usually come just after lunch in a group of twenty or so, all three generations at the same time. It was like a huge family reunion.

My grandma enjoyed being the hostess and matriarch of the clan (she was the most senior of her generation), but as a child and later a teen, I hated those occasions.

You had to greet all the granduncles and grandaunties (and try not to accidentally call 6th grandaunt 7th/10th grandaunt); uncles and aunts; and figure out who was who amongst the innumerable cousins whose names you couldn't remember afterwards, especially as the number increased over the years.

My job was to serve drinks (Fanta orange, anyone?), and I tell you it's no joke counting the guests and trying to make sure every one has got a drink in the midst of all the noisy greetings.

Especially when you're an introvert and all you want is to hide away somewhere and read a book instead of being subject to adult comments about how tall you've grown and how well (or not) you are doing at school.

I suppose it wasn't easy for the adults either.

They had a customary obligation they couldn't get out of: to hand out red packets to all the children and unmarried adults.

I got a taste of this unique adult responsibility years later when I was married and had to hand out red packets myself. My solution? Stay away from grandma's place on the afternoon of the first day of CNY!

Back to the funeral.

It's been more than two years since I've seen any of the extended family. I was happy to leave it to my mum and aunts and uncles to keep up the tradition of visitations and phone calls.

Then last week, my aunt texted me to say 7th grandaunt had passed away in Melbourne, and could my two cousins and I attend the wake on behalf of our respective families in Singapore.

There's no more powerful reminder of your age than a summons of this nature.

Represent the family? Surely that's for the elders to do? But of course, they're all in Singapore and we're here.

In the end, only one cousin was able to make it. We met outside the funeral home which turned out to be a church. There were fewer than twenty present, just the immediate family and a couple whom I'm guessing were the in-laws of one of my cousins.

But you know what?

Even though I confessed to my aunt that I couldn't remember very much of her mum (I didn't recognize the old lady till I looked at the portrait next to the casket), I'm glad we went.

The older I get, the more I appreciate belonging to a family.

Even if I'm not close to some members, even if my memories are tainted by the prejudices and perceptions of childhood, they are still my aunts and uncles and grandaunts and granduncles.

I'm even starting to feel a certain pride in my place in the extended family. A strong desire to do a good job of representing my elders. Knowing the right things to say. Respecting the old ways. Honouring traditions and customs.

I don't necessarily agree with the thinking behind some customs, but God has opened my eyes to subtlety and discretion. I can honour the person without being a slave to human tradition. I can affirm and empathize despite differences in age and upbringing and the separation of time and distance.

And every opportunity for contact is an opportunity to be an ambassador for Christ.

When I greeted the two granddaughters of 7th grandaunt, I made a conscious and bold decision to hug them instead of shaking hands as I might have done. The older of the granddaughters hugged me back so tightly and for so long that I felt embarrassed. She had been very close to her grandma, and she afterwards gave a beautiful eulogy which told me more about her grandma in ten minutes than I could've ever learnt in thirty CNYs.

I'd brought Beth with me, and my rellies were delighted to see how much she's grown. I think she was just a toddler when we last met. The two granddaughters, one newly married, are therefore aunts to Beth.

As we swapped contacts and returned to our respective cars after the cremation, my aunt reminded us that we should keep in touch, otherwise "our generation" (mine and my cousins') would not know each other.

She has a good point.

We're all grown up and we've moved on from our mischievous, annoying, crazy childhood days. We probably have more in common now. If we continue to keep the family connection alive, who knows what new chapters of family history we can pass on to our own children.