FAMILY

Guys, 

I know it's been a long time, quite too long! Welcome to 2020! 

I know things are suck right now with Coronavirus but I know eventually it will go away as long as we all stand and united as strong people .

I want to take a moment to discuss about family. Lately, on my social media, I have been noticing a lot of my friends are completely complaining about families while they didn't realize that it's only family that we got, A REAL one. 

Sure, community, close friends, and stuff like that are consider as our family but they're considered as second family. I mean, I know they are amazing support to us but who knows us better than ourselves? Yep, you got it right. Family knows better than us. 

I am going to share my personal story about my relationship with my father. Now, I didn't had any best relationship with my father in my life because he had been constantly in/out my life ever since I was little girl. Why was I speaking in the past tense? As you know, my father passed away in June 2015 due to terminal lung cancer. Of course, I loved him so much. When I was little girl, my parents were together but never married, had me and my sister altogether as family. That was until my brother was born. The only memories I had was favorite--my father used to take us out to park to play basketball and have quality time together for an hour or so. Sometimes he would take us to beach, I remember I loved to walk on the sand near water and explored the seashell and I would pick every piece of it and felt the texture of it. I remember attend parks/beaches until I was probably before teen. Of course, my family isn't perfect, and I am pretty ssure yours isn't. 

Entered teen years, my heart broken because I would seen every girl in my classes who involved in sports, any clubs, and etc...I would see their parents there to cheer on. For me, I had no parents to come and cheer me on because my mom is single mother, she works a lot of hours to support us. My father, *scoffs* were somewhere either with his former girlfriends, or being busy with something else. But I discovered that my father were in the jail. I decided at age, sixteen wrote the letter to my father and told him how exactly I feel. Of course, he felt bad and continually write back and forth to each other until I graduated high school, my father was supposed to be there for graduation but he didn't because of court date. I am glad that my mom and my siblings were there. I am grateful for them. 

Eventually, my father hit with terminal cancer, first thing I was thinking was that, time for me to reconnect with him again and rebuild the relationship of what we had left. We would able to learn more from each other and of course, both of us were stubbornness as my mom would said, "you and your sister have the streak of stubbornness from your father!". I laughed of course because it''s true. Anyways, he fought two good years with this terminal cancer. I made right decision to rebuild my relationship with him. I never regret one bit except for my future wedding, *laughing*. 

Life lesson: you only have ONE mother and ONE father. Embrace them, don't complain. They are the ones that know you best than any of your partner, than any of your best friends, better than any of your friends and even than your siblings! They born you and raised you to better person that you only know for yourself. Don't make any mistake like I did. Do something about it. Don't go around on social media and saying that you're disappointed, complaining, frustrating and stuff like that. We all get it! But honestly, in the end, you will lost them in the life, then you will go back and realized how much you have time left or how much you have build up your relationship with. Tell them that you love them every day, tell them how much you appreciated them, tell them how much you miss them, tell them EVERYTHING before it's too late. Believe me, I know the pain when it was too late. IT's not beautiful thing to think about or feel guilty. 

I don't care if you comes from deaf or hearing family because we all have our struggles and our life story that no one know behind the door. Just make sure that you make time for them because you will miss them MORE once they will not be here in the future. 

This letter is dedicated to my father who's rest in the peace up in the heaven along with his mother (my grandmother). I never met her but heard a few stories about her and she was quite beautiful woman. I know that I will touch her later in the future. 

Remember, love your family no matter what. No one is perfect. Love you mom, grandma, grandpa, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, cousin. 

Until next time. 

Love,

Samantha