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