Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

a friend asks…

‘My mom. If she died, I no longer have a place that I could call ‘home’ for me to return to.’

Being single, Jean realized this answer after living in the same house with her mom along with her older brother and his family for a year. She can always ‘come home’ where her mom lives. It’s common to live with parents-in-law when one gets married in their culture while having another sibling living in the same house.

Jean has other brothers and sisters living in other cities which she visits occasionally although she doesn’t really feel close to her siblings especially after she’s being misunderstood by some of them on some occasions. She’s been living outside since she can earn her own money. If not for easing her mom’s mind, she probably won’t visit her siblings that much.

Her mom and the family of her brother live under the same roof for more than ten years. Jean move back forced by the circumstances and listening to her mom’s complaints almost every day about how her grandchild doesn’t show respect to the elderly nor show respect to their own parents which means her son and daughter in law, failed as parents. They failed to teach their kids to respect the elderly. Her mother also complaints about how these grandkids grew to be picky about foods and always waste foods, every single day. Her mom was especially hurt because these foods were bought using the money given from her other daughter and son through hard work.

Besides failing to be good parents, Jean’s brother is also not wise at choosing friends. One of his friends tricked him till he lose some of his money, but he still hangs out with this friend which never show good intentions. One of his friend always talking about gambling, he hang out with him most until one day he got his leg injured when going out with this friend, since then this friend only show up twice and then never show his self again. This reminds them how their late father also gets his leg injured when going out with one of his friends for gambling and then dying slowly in the bed while his friend never shows his face again. Not even at his funeral.

It’s a parent’s responsibility to teach and raise their kids so they can respect the elderly. Both Jean and her mother agreed on this. Having been living together under the same roof, looking at the situation, Jean tells her mom to not intervention too much especially she had tried to help but those grandchildren just won’t listen to what she said. It’s hard to raise and teach kids if those kids have no respect for the person who’s talking. Jean suggest her mother learn to turn a blind eye and better look at her own well-being rather than having negativity every day which wasn’t good for her mental health especially now she’s seventy-two years old.

Jean can’t imagine what would these kids grow into later if they didn’t find a good model to be their example role.

Like a country needs one wise leader to rule for their people,

a family, need one person who acts as the head of the family and set the rule for everyone who stayed there in order to keep the people living under that one roof lives in harmony and growing better as a person.

In that house where Jean stays with her mom and his brother’s family, it’s not known who’s acts as the head of the family. It’s kind of a complicated situation. The house owner was their mom. But according to society, a man should act as the head of a family and Jean’s brother failed in their opinion. But Jean can see why his brother failed. It’s their mom’s house, Jean’s brother loves and respects their mom so he can’t really decide to himself to be the head of that house. Especially he didn’t make that much money and her mom had to help to support his family. His inferior mindset is very clear to Jean. Jean can see her brother has some good friends which can influence him in a better way but instead, he chooses to hang out with those personalities who were worse than him and hardly in touch with those wiser friends. By hanging out with those personalities who are worse than him, Jean’s brother can feel good about his self. Jean heard how sometimes her brother will say how he’s better than those friends that he hangs out with.

Jean only wishes her mom can learn how to turn a blind eye and let go of those resentments which resulted from disappointment that she buried for a long time accumulated through what she witnessed and experienced in that house shared with her son’s family, daily.

It’s a culture curse.

Most of them lived like that in the same house, they didn’t learn how to communicate better with open-mindedness to create a better quality of life.
Out of polite, trying to respect each other, they become too afraid to say what’s going on in their mind feared of hurting each other feelings and causing a rift not knowing it eventually build up resentments.

From that experience of living together with her mom and the family of her brother, Jean finally learned she needed to be the head of her own house if she can’t find a partner where she can come home to because when her mom is gone, she’s no longer have a place called home where she can return to.