Photos of the past

I could not sleep last night. Too many things were running in my head.

Last night during my grandpa’s wake, a relative brought over old photos of my grandparents. It was the first time I’ve seen my grandparents wedding photo. First time I’ve seen both of my great-grandfathers as well. They wanted me to scan in all the photos so I carried home a very old tin box filled with photos from the past.

When I reached home, already quite late at night, I found myself staring at my grandparent’s wedding photo for such a long time. They look so young in the photo, only 18 or 19 years old. So serious, so solemn, but with a long bright future right in front of them. Then I wondered what it would be like for me to be old and at my last years, look back at my own wedding photo knowing that, okay… time’s up. You’ve almost finished your race, whether or not you were happy with how the race went, it’s time for you to go off now.

My grandparent’s marriage was arranged by their fathers as a way to improve the business between the two families. My grandma’s father owned a pawn shop and my grandpa’s father owned a gold shop. So gold that gets pawned then gets sold at the gold shop.

Then I found myself wondering what my grandparents were like when they were young. What was it like to marry a man arranged by your parents? Did they fall in love after that? Did they hold hands and plan their future together?

I found another photo, a family photo of my grandparents and their 6 children. 5 boys, 1 girl. All still young children. All still innocent. So what happened? What caused all of them to go on in life each creating their own real-life mini TVB drama series? What caused all the drama and conflict among all the siblings? What caused something that started so innocent end up so ugly?

I stared at that family photo even longer. And when I went to bed, my thoughts couldn’t stop. All my life I have been isolated from my family and have been brought up hearing ugly stories about them. If you grew up being taught that the world is flat only to one day realize that the world is round, I’m sure you’d been stunned for a while. For the past week, I’ve been getting to know my family through my hubby. All strange and new for me.

And then I realized something. Whatever happened during my parent’s generation is not mine to inherit and carry. It’s not my battle to fight. I don’t care which relative is horrible and which is not in the eyes of my parents. I’ve decided to see with my own eyes and make my own decisions. If one relative is horrible, that relative can be as horrible as (s)he want’s to be, I don’t care and I don’t want to care. But I shall no longer isolate the whole family just because of the boogie monsters from the past (who should be really old boogie monsters with wrinkles and white hair by now).

After making peaces with the old wrinkly boogie monsters from the past, I finally managed to fall asleep last night. I still have young boogies monsters of my generation to battle, but I’ll leave those alone for another time.

I hope that one day if I have grandchildren, they will also one day find my wedding photos as one of their most precious family treasures. Only that unlike me, they wouldn’t be wondering what their grandparents were like.

They would already know.

In loving memory of my grandpa