I had a family reunion with my father, auntie (my father’s sister), stepmother, and half-brother. It’s just like any other family reunion, where we chat over the old days, catch up with each other a little bit and at the same time enjoy great foods. It’s like a normal family reunion except the fact that we hadn’t seen each other within almost 20 years, so it took me sometime to relate the old image of everyone in my buried memories to their updated, brand-new versions.

Time has changed everything. And I doubt if we stumbled into each other in the street, I could be able to recognize any of them. However, it just takes me a few minutes to get back into the  old familiarity, to be part of it. I used to doubt about the blood tie thing. Perhaps I was wrong, such bound did exist.

When everything clicks, I found myself skipping the introduction part or perhaps I just did it on purpose. It’s kind of awkward for me to say: “Hi, dad, this is your son-in-law, and your grandson, who is 12 years-old by the way. And honey, this is Auntie….oh, forgive me, you are my Auntie right?”

Too dramatized even for a drama like this.

I didn’t get too emotional about this reunion. After all it just feels like a family reunion.

My grandma died in peaceful sleep when she was nineties. My father insisted that I was her favorite grand-kid, I doubt that, typical my father, he always bragged about almost everything. My absence might make me some kind of special, nothing more.

My uncle (my auntie’s husband), died from cancer, and he would stay forever in my memory as a kind and healthy mid-aged uncle.

All of those feelings, grudges, indignation, expectations, and love blurred together, numbed by the passing time, into something less disturbing, something almost peaceful. If I had to give it a name, I would say “acceptance”.