My younger sister recently celebrated her silver marriage anniversary. Since she lives abroad after getting married, none from her immediate family could attend the celebration. Her parents are too old to travel internationally, and her siblings were too busy in their daily lives to make time and dole out the considerable expense traveling would entail.

After witnessing the photos and videos of the celebrations, I was left with the feeling of an opportunity missed. One of many, which were important to her but was missed by us. I heard her talking to her friends that “Since we are in a foreign land people back home have forgotten us”. Most of her friends agreed. That got me thinking. Have we really forgotten members of our family because we don’t meet them often enough?

 On pondering her statement and trying to understand mine and her sentiments, I believe that it is not so. She has lived abroad for 25 years and has built a home and given a secure and healthy atmosphere to her family. We were blessed with a readymade support system of family, because we stayed in India. Even when we travel, we meet family members and I feel I am truly blessed that I can call on any member of my extended family for support and company whenever I require it. She did not have that and has painstakingly built it over the years. She has built a support system from scratch with friends who act as surrogate members of her family. This makes me proud of her achievements. Her friends are like rocks on whom she has leaned for help and support when required. Many a times we have known about her problems after she has overcome them. It makes me feel very proud of her independence and resilience, but also a little sad that she did not call me for help. On hindsight I probably wouldn’t have been able to do much except, for giving platitudes like “everything will be all right”. It makes me grateful to those who helped her then and perhaps a little jealous, that they are part of her life and probably more important to her then we are. I am forced to acknowledge that her support system and her day-to-day life does not involve us in India. but it is also true that neither does she feature in our day-to-day life, or immediate support system. Just like her short term plans do not include us, our short-term plans do not include her. It is just that there are more of us in India, so she gets excluded out of more plans than we are by her. Sad but true and also inevitable, but That does not mean we have forgotten her. Her crazy party are discussed threadbare. We marvel at how she manages to turn everyday things like going to a movie into a celebration of Indian culture. Her song and dance videos are played not on the phone but over the big TV for better viewing. We marvel at the way she plans her events and how she has kept her culture and traditions alive in a foreign land, perhaps more than we have managed in our own country. We plan our holidays around when she will visit India next and collect gifts for her and her kids long before they are due to visit us. If we go somewhere we like we discuss the possibility of bringing her over when she visits. Now that her daughter is grown, we even plan what we will gift her when she gets married, keeping aside jewelry and sarees.

Her parents are aging and don’t remember everything. I see them struggle with technology and words to keep up with her life, and I sense her disappointment. I can understand her disappointment when her own parents are unable to respond with the same enthusiasm, she hosts her parties, but they are just growing old. I see them struggle through their daily lives, forgetting things, events and even food left on the burner. I see them struggle to walk and summon the strength to walk to store nearby to buy medicines. With age and restricted hearing and sight they are slowly withdrawing into themselves, but I am unable to do anything about it. The least, we as kids can do is talk to them, ask their advice and make sure their grandkids talk to them, on a regular basis.

But this is about my sister and not my parents. Suffice to say that I can understand her feeling of being forgotten because her Parents do not respond to her as she would expect. It is up to me and her elder sister to take up the slack.

So how do we go about keeping stronger ties? It means doing things to make a long-distance relationship work. And since it requires not individuals, but all members of the family, it also requires, whatever needs to be done to build a good team.

Research have shown that most happy families communicate effectively. But talking doesn’t mean simply “talking through problems,” as important as that is. As a family we have been blessed with the gift of gab. We love talking and telling stories. For us, Talking also means telling real but positive story about ourselves.

There are normally three kind of narratives we indulge in

• First, the ascending family narrative: “Son, your great grandfather was very poor, we had nothing. Our family worked on the fields. Your grandfather needed to walk 10 kms to go to school. Your father went to college. And now you. …”
• Second is the descending narrative: “Daughter, we used to have it all. Then we lost everything.”
• Thirdly, what I feel is the most healthful narrative, what I call the pendulum family narrative: ‘Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. Your grandfather was a pillar of the community. Your Grandmother was on respected teacher and Principle in Collage. But we also had setbacks. You had an uncle who was once thrown out of numerous jobs. We had a burglary in our house. Your father lost a job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family’. 

  And it is the stories about families that matter. Stories about friends and mentors are important but do not have nearly the same impact as stories about parents and other family members. My Neice and nephew hardly meet me or their aunt but know us by the stories told to them by their parents and their grandparents. For that matter my kids also know their seldom met aunt by the stories we tell about her. If our kids knew more about their family history, where their grandparents went to school, how their parents met, and even difficult events such as a terrible illness that a family member suffered, they will have a higher sense of family cohesion.

How parents and their parents before them met the inevitable obstacles of life, provide models of perseverance and hope. Family stories make abstract values concrete; they embody a way of being in the world and give our kids a way to find themselves from these stories – this is the kind of person I am; these are the kind of people I come from. But we have to be careful that our differences do not need to be passed on to the next generation.

Some years back, before the advent of smartphones calling abroad was a costly affair but it is not so anymore. With instant sharing of photos and videos the feeling of connection is enhanced. But sometimes we are guilty of just enjoying these without actually appreciating it or even be bothered about giving feedback. Perhaps I am getting old too and find it difficult to change. So, on her silver wedding day, on which I have not gifted her anything I am writing this for her as a gift and vow to not only talk to her more often but also tell more stories about her to my kids. They might meet their aunt only once a year or less, but they will know about her vibrant personality, her achievements, struggles and triumphs.

A girl’s parents are always her closest friend, mentor, and source of affection, but her brother is also her best buddy. All of your buddies cannot replace and complete a brother. You can tell him anything, and he probably already knows your deepest secrets before anybody else. He will stop at nothing to defend and love you and will always be there for you.