Family Man

Early last week, I had a little fall. An emotional fall. I rang my dad up during a long break we had and a long teary conversation ensued about directions, purposes, life in the army, and life outside.

As early as a year ago, I cringed every time my dad launched into lectures about family togetherness. They were getting one too many, and it's frankly amazing how they can repeat the exact same phrases each time they go into it and never realise it nor get tired. By then I'd heard many things about the history of my paternal family, and it wasn't exactly happy hour with them. Alot, alot of crap happened, and seemed to come one after the other after the other, like a well planned attack. All I can say is that for the stubborn, sometimes narrow man that he is, I'm very glad that he pulled through the right way, instead of turning to... ok well, the dark side.

My dad was glad that I called to talk to him, because my extreme moodiness every Sunday evening did not escape his eyes (not that I made much of an effort to conceal it anyways), and he was concerned about what was bugging me. Such an inexplicable depression falls over me when I think about camp and training, and I get extremely reluctant to leave home and its now precious comforts. It honestly doesn't help that all my campmates seem to be able to say are "Oh dear how I don't think we're going to pass our summary exercise and will not turn operational and suffer another month of slavery and oppression". It irks me every time they do that.

What touched me so much was that after the call, which was in some ways comforting already, I went for my all day rather intensive training, and when I came back, there were missed calls and SMSes telling me to hang in there and keep happy. The whole family rose at my dad's call to pick me up from my fall, and help me stand again. I was so amazed, and I knew that I'd never disagree with the high importance of family support ever again. The next thing I knew, my dad texted a day later to say "We're going for a family dinner on Sunday. Is Brazil (churascura) ok with you?" I said it was abit too meaty, and he replied, "Ok. We'll go to Melt at Oriental then."

"That's so expensive... we could do with cheaper food, we're still spending time together anyway."

And you know what the man said? "It's ok. Nothing costs too much for good family bonding time."

It was quite hard to control myself.

Monday night when I booked in I was compelled to thank him again and again he said, "Nothing costs too much too make you feel good and loved. Keep your spirit high and overcome temporary obstacles knowing you have strong family support always."

So this is love.

Thanks dad. Thanks mom. Thanks Renjie. Thanks Sandra. Thanks Kat. Thanks MKT.

Ok ok on a not so emo note, for nom-nom love, I've got the FB album link here. Go ahead, hate me. :)