‘You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them’. — Bishop Desmond Tutu
NO one is born to be alone. Every person is born into this world to be part of a community. Each individual is born into a family. The family is thus the first community in which one becomes a member.
The importance of the family cannot be overstated. Even the framers of our Constitution set out to emphasize its primacy and importance: “The State recognizes the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation.”
In our culture, we value most our family, whether nuclear, extended or adopted. It is in the family where we learn how to love, show compassion and build trust and loyalty.
I have just gone through a heartrending experience which to me proves that family comes above anything else in your life. My only sister recently succumbed to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. She had lived for most of her adult life in the US, alone with her husband (they had no children), away from her closest and dearest in the Philippines.
Some our first degree cousins lived in a nearby state but she hardly kept in touch with them. She and her husband would come home once in a while for a visit, especially when our parents were still alive.
When she was stricken with the dreadful disease, her husband reached out to our cousins in the States, perhaps to share the burden of his pain and loss — not physically as medical assistance was at their fingertips, but for filial support. They were of course ready with whatever comfort and support they could give and when the time came to say their final goodbyes, the family went to be with him in his time of grief.
We were burning the telephone wires to help but we were oceans apart.
Weeks later, her ashes were brought home to be inurned beside our parents. We held a brief wake where family and friends came to condole with us, to help out with the religious rituals, the documentation and the thousand and one chores needed at such a time.
My brother and I could not have done all these by ourselves. Seeing and talking to family during the wake helped to alleviate the pain that we were carrying. We never seemed to tire of talking with our cousins, recalling our childhood, dredging up our shared memories, remembering each other’s likes, dislikes, even our childhood tantrums.
We Filipinos try our best to show our filial devotion. Parents work hard to provide for their families–from sustenance to clothing and shelter to education. Children on the other hand care for elderly parents, making sure they live comfortably and in good health. Many decisions on important matters are arrived at after consultation with other members of the extended family. It is also from the family that one gets support and unconditional love in spite of and through one’s failures and shortcomings. And when one member falters or fails, the family tries to shield him or her from being judged by others. It is in the family where one’s place is irreplaceable.
While we don’t choose our family, opening our hearts wide to receive love from family is our choice. So is reciprocating this by loving them back.
Like a spiral, sometimes we go up, many times we slide down, and at all these times family is a symbol of unity, of oneness, and the repository of our deepest connections.
