I celebrated my paternal grandmother's birthday today. She is 79 years old and still going strong. However, the next time someone orders an ice-cream cake, please defrost it before we go into the merry mood of singing the birthday song and blowing the candles out.
I hate it when people pass me clothes that they have kept in their cupboard for eons till not only do the clothes have a pungent cupboard smell, the colour has also faded. To my relatives, I am not an impoverished and malnourished boy who is living in abject poverty. I may look emaciated but I am actually eating well and savouring every moment of my life to its fullest. I am not the Salvation's Army and even if I were, they ought to be treated with some respect for the work that they are doing. Do not ever put me in the same equation or even in the same sentence with your brother, my father. I ain't him and never will I ever be him.
Sometimes I feel as though I were a complete stranger when I am with my paternal family. My presence seems to not be of any importance to any one. Perhaps, that's why I have chosen to skip my reunion dinners with them for all these years. Am I drifting too far away from them already? Is acceptance from them what I really want? They who judge, scrutinise and discriminate. Family ties. Just connected by mere blood or is there something deeper?
---till later-----
