What the mind of love reveals

It has been an interesting few days. I haven't made reference to much of the inner thoughts of my mind, but here goes. Marcelina's father has been diagnosed with a 9cm high, and a 6.5cm Aortic aneurism, the prognosis is that it could burst at any moment with fatal consequences. It appears that with his health in such a delicate manner and his advanced years against the chance of a successful surgery outcome, the children who are outside the philippines, will all return home. It was my feeling that it would be much better to share memories of their dad whilst he is alive rather than waiting and going to a funeral, though I accept that they will be there again when that occurs. I know that from my own experience.

So they will be away shortly leaving Denzel and I with some time to be together for a few weeks. I am looking forward to that. I have been made aware of how fragile life can be from a young and impressionable age. As I saw the Lim family children deciding on their course of action, I was reminded of the time when my adopted Dad passed away. I have dreamt about him about 5 times since he died in 1979. I have on each of those occasions imagined or dreamed that I had the chance to talk with him for a short time, and then felt the emptiness all over again when I awoke finding it was all some cruel hoax of imagination or sub conscious. That said, I went through phases when I really didn't like him at all when he was here, but recognise that I probably wasn't always the most likeable person either. It has been an interesting raft of emotions. I have been rather stoic through Mum's cancer, Marcelina's health scare, her Dad's current situation and also the hassles I have been experiencing in other areas of my little world. I have found I have compartmentalised my feelings on certain subjects and then try to deal with them as and when I need to.

I have been made aware that is Ok to feel down, feel uncertain and confused, but not to remain in those cancerous states of emotion. The strength I am finding within, is certainly aided by the encouragement and support of people I believe to be heaven sent. The people I speak of, are not here just to help you simply cope, but to rise above the feelings of being down and uncertain, and triumph over the situation. I am certainly very grateful for dear friends, they are precious jewels I would be all the poorer for, not to have them in my life. I don't have many close friends, but I love each of those few I do have dearly. I am grateful for their uniqueness and insight.

Today I caught up at 6am with a niece, Nisha and we all went to Sydney airport to visit and say goodbye to our aunty Shirley who had graced our shores from Las Vegas. We didn't see her. It appears she checked in early and went straight into customs. We were disappointed we missed our aunty and tried to look for the positives, WE got to catch up. It has caused me to ponder much on the nature of family and extended family since this morning. There are a thousand reasons why my aunty couldn't catch up with me personally, but not to have had a single phone call, not any contact has caused me much sadness. I have tried on many occasions to reach out and share my awhi (pronounced uffy- a slang term, meaning love or feelings) only to be constantly disappointed. Her daughter Elizabeth who is a successful psychologist in Hawaii, is wonderful. When I met her I just fell in love with her, not in some romantic or weird sense, I just loved her capacity to laugh and I thought we got on like a house on fire. Yet at each of my 20 or so phone calls and countless emails they all go unanswered. Many people ask me in my immediate family why I bother trying, I don't have an answer. Though today I will stop, and that is sad for me.

I went on a personal pilgrimmage about 2 years ago to visit all of my adopted dad's siblings that remain alive and I accomplished that. I felt my dad was very grateful, and since then the family has chosen not to respond further. I thought at first they were busy and found it hard to respond, but that only made me more persistent until I realised that perhaps I am blind to the biggest message of all, they don't want contact with me! Having said that I am at pains to add that I am not angry at all, just sad. I have spoken with my Uncle Thom and he has expressed his sadness at not keeping in touch, he is a good man and being the younger brother of my adopted Dad, he was loved by dad. I looked at him when I sat in his house in Vegas, and saw the twists of his hair and was reminded of Dad. It was a bizarre experience, and yet not. Dad had a brother called Whanaupani or Ben for short, who after a major disagreement left New Zealand vowing never to return and never to keep in contact with the family, and to this day, his surviving family no nothing of his whereabouts or nothing as to whether he had any children.

It appears my aunty Shirley has had a problem that I was adopted into the Peihopa family, and the biggest twist is of all seems to be, that Denzel and I may be the only surviving carriers of this section of the Peihopa family name and as we are not the "true bearers" of that name some of the surviving people may have an issue with that. It was made clear to me once at a wedding I did in New Zealand some years ago, when an unknown woman came up to me and almost spat in my face, saying YOU are NOT a Peihopa, and when I said I was adopted, she agreed and said I thought so, then stormed away. I was stunned. As I ponder that now in light of the situation I see at present, I think the appropriate response to that accusation then is, you are right, you win. I am not by birth surely! But I hasten to add, that I have love to share in their direction as well. Perhaps I am too intense and I should just kick back and wait for them to come to me, it's just that I know intimately that tomorrow doesn't always come, life is so very short. I want to maximise each opportunity here and now. I can reach out often to them but...... Oh well. As Forest Gump said, " I think I've said enough about that!"