Voice From Down Under

This year, I received a Christmas card from a cousin in Australia. I don't know who this cousin is, but the card was address to me at my home.

We have two cousins in Australia. My mother had asked me to write to them at the end of last year to let them know my grandmother and father had both passed away. But after the mourning period in December, we were immediately into Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year. Mom wanted me to write to the cousins only after the Chinese new year so they would not start the new year with bad news. It sets a bad luck tone for the rest of the year.

So at the end of last February, I wrote to them. I did not expect to hear back from them.

When I received the Christmas card this year, the cousin tells me that he was diagnosed with Hepatitas B last March. He is better now and has moved to Melbourne to be closer to his sister and her family.

These are older cousins, in their 70's and 80's. A part of me really wants to meet them and get to know them better, meet their adult children, preserve our connection. Ours are family ties that will be forever severed and lost if I don't pursue to tighten them. We don't have a lot of time left.

The Man also has cousins in Australia.

Australia is beckoning.