I welcome you to my blog and another wonderful edition of the Hive Learner's featured post. One thing I have realised over the years is that at least 80% of children from my generation don't have a good relationship with their extended family; it is either they are not in talking terms with uncles, aunties and even cousins, or they are talking to them but it is not so deep, more like a very shallow relationship, one where they just hi and hello whenever their paths cross and never talk to each other again until their paths cross again. That is not how family should treat family.
Some of us relate more with friends than we even relate with our cousins; our friends are more of a family than our actual family (uncles, aunties and cousins). I am more free around my close friends than I am with cousins. I have a better relationship with friends I am not even related to by blood than with cousins who I am related to by blood. I can comfortably tease a friend's mother or even father but cannot comfortably tease an uncle or aunty because we do not have that type of relationship and are not that close. How can I be more fond of people I am not related to than I am to the ones I am related to? It is an error.
I do not have a good relationship with my uncles, particularly because there was a time I stayed with one of them in 2018, and his wife almost starved me to death, not because there was no food (there was food in excess), but because it was just her pattern, and he did not stand up to her or do anything to correct that; rather, he gave me words of encouragement. That alone made us grow even more apart from each other; we don't talk unless we cross paths, probably in the village, and whenever we do, we do so in a hurry so everyone gets to where they are going to.
As much as it hurts me, sometimes I feel like it is too late to start building any relationship with them; even if the issue has been addressed before, we get close for a day or two, and then we go back to factory reset, and instead of the little time we spent together to bring us close, we grow even more distant. After the attempt to get close, we became even more distant, and I just realised it is better a relationship is built when younger and not now that we are older. Growing up, we hardly crossed paths with uncles and aunties because we were living on the northern part of the country, and travelling back home was like travelling halfway around the world, so we only travelled when the need be.
I will not want that for my kids; I will want them to have a better relationship with their uncles and aunties. I have seen people who have a good relationship with uncles and aunties get the help I needed but were not able to get it because at the moment my parents could not offer me that help, and I could not offer myself that, and then those who could have been my option, I could not ask because we don't have that type of relationship.
Images were generated using chatgpt.
