I Have Faith In Family Therefore I Have Faith In Humanity

eight decades ago

in southeastern china my grandmother

stood on a dock

and gazed upon the sea and sky

she was only four years old and while

she was born into a prosperous upper

class family

she grew up distant from her mother and

father

they like many traditional chinese

parents at the time

favored their sons over their daughters

to the point

of neglecting the latter my grandma

therefore grew up in the care of

a nanny that her parents employed

from the day of her birth my grandma

shared a unique

wholehearted mother-daughter bond with

this nanny

that easily surpassed that which she

shared with their actual

yet often absent mother

when this nanny was compelled to leave

china in order to reunite with her

husband

she feared that her departure would mean

no one would take care of my young

grandma

and so she asked my grandma’s parents if

they would be willing to let their

little girl

come and live with her at least for a

little while

they said yes they were glad they had

someone that could take their daughter

off their hands

and they cared more about her brothers

than they would ever care for her anyway

they told my young grandma

that she would be going on a trip to get

candy

with her nanny

as the colossal ship my grandma boarded

drifted away

from everything she had ever known she

didn’t realize it was headed

to the shores of vietnam not

a fantasyland with candy galore

she didn’t realize she would never

return to the scenic countryside

where she was raised what she did

realize

years later was that her parents

never intended to see her again for as

long

as she would live

as a kid i heard this heartbreaking

story

and i always struggle to understand how

my grandma

lived her entire life knowing that her

parents have deliberately disowned her

at the age of four with no good reason

it just didn’t make any sense to me and

how could it

growing up i’ve had the amazing fortune

of being surrounded by a

huge loving family my grandma had

nine children including my mom

seven of them reside in my hometown of

mississauga

in canada with their individual nuclear

families

meaning i have a lot of relatives living

in close proximity

and that’s not even counting my dad’s

side yet

our extraordinarily large a close-knit

family enables us to congregate often

and live interconnected lives where kin

is always readily available

to help out whether an errand groceries

or

just general support is needed i had a

lovely childhood

playing pokemon and minecraft with my

cousins coming over to my

aunt’s home after school to the smell of

their cooking

visiting my grandparents regularly and

of course being raised by my two

wonderful loving parents alongside

my incredibly annoying yet beloved

younger brother

and so my childhood clearly differed

from my grandma’s in so many fundamental

ways

and after all she had been through at

such a young

age i wondered how my grandma ever

became the

warm life-loving compassionate woman

that i’ve known for the entirety of my

life

she could have walked the path of anger

pessimism

cynicism she could have felt cheated

she could have she should have felt as

if a part

of her was missing but as she fondly

recalls

one thing savior from all this hurt

and all this bitterness and it was her

nanny’s

love when fate cast her into a home that

neglected her

her nanny accepted her fed her

spent time with her cared for her

supported her

loved her and this love is the reason

why

she never felt the need to foster any

resentment

why she never felt an urge to find and

reconnect

with her biological family through her

youth

adolescence and adulthood her nanny

could have easily left her behind the

whim

of her neglectful family but she didn’t

she chose to take my grandmother in as

if she was her own child

and raised her and to my grandmother

that meant

everything her nanny was her true home

her true family and no rejection or

mistreatment

even from her own bloodline could take

that away from her

my grandmother likes to say that her

nanny is the reason why she believes in

the genuine

goodness of people she says that her

nanny’s love

taught her that in this life we must be

grateful for what we have

rather than mourn what we don’t

that in a cold world where many would

turn their backs on

us without a second glance those

that stand with us unconditionally are

the ones that we need

to hold close

i’ve always held these lessons that my

grandma passed on from her nanny

close to my heart when i consider the

way i

want to live my own life and the way i

approach my relationships

with others

family whether connected by

blood like mine or bond like my

grandma’s

is agonizingly overlooked

amidst a world of infinite woes

coupled with our generation’s distant

chili demeanor we live in a society

divided by discrimination and politics

ignorance and hypocrisy poverty

and greed history tells us

that humanity is a harbinger of war a

harbinger

of violence every day in the news we

read headlines that speak of

crimes tragedies fiascos

we meet people throughout our lives that

hurt us

deceive us abuse our trust

through all this it is no surprise that

many of us feel as if

the human race is broken

broken beyond repair

and so it might be a bit strange when i

say that

during the cataclysmic era of the covet

19 pandemic

i’ve unexpectedly recaptured

my faith in humanity how

by being isolated with the best of it

we have witnessed the pandemic

bring the entire world down to its knees

first hand

confined within the walls of our homes

and shouted by

loneliness boredom anxiety

this lockdown lifestyle as relentless

and

draining as it has been has given me

unprecedented control

over my daily schedule and so i started

to spend more and more of my time with

well the only people i really could

spend time safely in quarantine

my mom my dad and my younger brother

as we hung out in our backyard watched

hockey

went jogging and binge chinese takeout

together

i grew to really appreciate their

unconditional presence

in my life life began to feel so much

more

simple without its usual distractions

as it really should be all the time

pandemic or no pandemic

i realized that no matter how

tempestuous or chaotic the world around

me

may be my family sees this love would

always exist

as a shield that i could hide myself

behind

when faced with feelings of isolation

feelings of stress feelings of despair

whenever i doubted the integrity of

others

whenever i doubted the integrity of the

world

i’ve always known this deep down

but i’ve always been too busy with

school to consume by my responsibilities

commitments pride

really to see them as they truly were

my younger brother as my best friend

my dad as my hero

and my mom as my guardian angel

i began to truly understand

the heartfelt way that my grandmother

speaks

of her nanny

whether your family is big or small

what your family is related by blood

or bond whether your family lives in the

same neighborhood

or opposite ends of the world it is so

so important that we put aside our

worries

vanity and differences in order

to spend time with family in order

to confide in family in order to accept

that we can be vulnerable with family

because even if they may not understand

our troubles

our problems they will never stop

standing

with us

give your parents a hug hang out with

your siblings

call your grandparents reach out to your

relatives

overseas when you are a part

of a family you are a part of a whole

and in turn that whole becomes a part

of you a part of you that will always

compel you

to see the best in everyone you meet

a part of you that will inspire you to

trust

to apologize to forgive

a part of a little girl arriving in

vietnam

80 years ago with no one by her side

but her nanny a part

of humanity that will always

give us something to have faith in

we live in a world where our generation

has complex feelings

we crave affection but are embarrassed

of displaying it

we wish for time but never make the most

of it

we desire fulfillment but betrayed for

gratification

we yearn for trust but romanticize

cynicism

we spend our whole lives

searching for love so blinded

by our own self-regard that we fail to

realize

love is often right in front of us

we fail to realize love is often

all around us we fail to realize

that there is no need to be petrified

of saying the words i love you

in a world of perpetual motion it is so

easy to become distracted it is so easy

to become this illusion it is so easy to

forget

that even though we may be the

protagonists of our stories

there are other characters that depend

on us

and there are other characters that we

can depend on there are other characters

that matter in a vast

often cruel world of hate and

indifference

we must remember that where there is a

capacity for love

there’s a capacity for good and all it

takes

is one look at those who love you

to realize that

i will never lose faith

in humanity no matter how cold no matter

how

dark no matter how hopeless

it may become because i will always

have faith in my loved ones

and at the end of the day that’s all any

of us can

do in this short fleeting

life through highs and lows

through joy and pain through life

and death family

is humanity’s one eternal

saving grace tell yours

that you love them thank you