Reflections on Relations
In just a day, my aunt's condition had took a turn for the worse and I found myself back in Johor Bahru to attend her funeral. All that is now over and I'm taking an early bus home after this.
I had returned on my last trip via the ETS but I couldn't get a ticket this time. Weekend trains, I found out, are usually fully booked. However travelling on executive buses is not a bad alternative for there are single seats that are also quite comfortable, and some with very good on-board WiFi connection too. For this trip, I had taken a bus from TBS (Terminal Bersepadu Selatan) in Taman Tasik Selatan. The southward journey was a breeze; the 5 hours just flew by, with me catching up on podcasts, interspersed with short but much needed naps.
These trips to JB have been educational for me. I met and talked to many people along the way, catching many glimpses into individuals from different walks of life. I had so many interesting conversations with Grab drivers, about their lives and families, which I should write down perhaps as material for future articles.
My aunt's passing also made me reflect on the relationship between family members and relatives. As someone who has chosen to be permanently single, I've often wondered if I had simply reneged on my responsibility to perpetuate the family line. But I've also seen among my relations, how difficult marriages can be.
It was Tolstoy who famously wrote this first line in Anna Karenina: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". It suggests that, the cause of unhappiness in families, is often due to specific and individual issues. My own observations suggest that unhappiness will inevitably arise in any family usually due to personality differences. You can never resolve these differences fully; families that thrive have simply found sensible workarounds.
All of us are unique creatures, each with a unique set of genes and personal experiences. Immediately our 'boundary conditions' are different. And these initial starting points determine the kind of behavior--good or bad--that gets expressed. From what I see, people are mostly determined by their genes. It is difficult to overcome natural genetic tendencies.
Families are often unhappy simply because everyone thinks and behaves differently. What is of priority to one member is taken lightly by another; living habits often differ and as a result, resentment builds up slowly over time, initially below the surface, but soon manifest as hatred and arguments.
We tend to see other people's flaws but is completely blind when it comes to our own. Furthermore each family has a power structure, which inevitably give rise to feelings of jealousy and bitterness between members. If there are sick and elderly members in the family, there could be disagreements over who is supposed to or has not done enough to care for them.
Ram Dass famously said, "If you think you are enlightened, spend the weekend with your parents". When we are dealing with our family members, our deepest flaws are often exposed. To recoil in anger is the instinctive response.
My aunt died of multiple old age issues in her eighties alone in a hospital. She was a divorcee with two estranged sons--cousins whom I never had a chance to get to know, who could no longer be contacted. My aunt was lucky to have my elderly uncle who had patiently cared for her, sending her to an old folks' home when she needed daily assistance and had finally completed his familial obligation, arranging for a simple Christian funeral to send her off from this life.
Death makes us reflect on the meaning of our own lives. Ultimately, the things that matter are the relationships you have, with your parents, siblings, relatives and friends. A lifetime is finite. My aunt had lived and died and the only remnants of her existence are dry ashes and bones in an urn. It was brotherly love that had given her this last bit of dignity and her memory lives on, at least in this blog article of mine, now consigned to posterity.
