Ohana Means Family

Hey, it's been a while.

Ah, it's all my fault. I should keep updating but honestly I am a perfectionist procrastinator--the deadliest combination. I wait until the last possible minute to complete something, but even then it needs to be perfect, so I end up hurting myself in the end, stressing to get it completed to my satisfaction before the deadline.

But now that my mom's home from the hospital and done with all her antibiotics, it's due time for me to make the much-needed post about family.



Ohana is the perfect word to describe how family works. Most of y'all have probably heard of it from Lilo & Stitch. Ohana encompasses your nuclear family, blood-relations, and those you've added along the way, formal ties or not. It represents a bond between the members, in which unity, cooperation, and remembrance are stressed.

Coming here, I realize now how empty my life has been. Here, there's everybody. Grandparents. Uncles. Aunts. Cousins. Brothers and sisters. Friends. Memories.

Back in the US, I would constantly be trying to fill a hole in my heart that I never knew was there. Every friend I made, I would call them my sister, or my brother (especially my brother), trying to make sense of this loss I was experiencing that I didn't know of.

Gods, I've wanted an older brother for so long. I didn't even know why. Always, I would lament the fact that I had no older brother, no one to care for me or protect me or tease me or help me as I grew older. No one to look up to or prank or rely on. Every time I saw a younger sister-older brother pair, I couldn't help from getting jealous of that relationship. I've even asked my mom multiple times if I actually did have a secret elder brother hiding out there somewhere, waiting for the right moment to tell me. (To me, her silence was an affirmative...)

So I tried to make myself an older brother. Any family friends we had-older brother. My math buddy? Older brother. Camp counselor? Older brother. Best friend? Older brother. But I was still missing that real, actual, older brother.

Alas, my misery ends with good news. Not only do I have an older brother here: I. HAVE. TWO.

Holy crap, I was so happy to meet them. I had already met Alex dai, (meaning older brother), 11 years ago, the last time I came, but I only have a small memory of sitting and eating sugar cane with him while he made fun of me for some long forgotten reason. The other however, I had only found out through Facebook, when my mom told me that I had another brother cousin. I met him for the first time this visit, and he owns a restaurant and I got to eat so much food. I love them both so much, it's like all the love that I had tucked away is bubbling out.

With all my cousins and nuclear family (only), I have two older brothers, Alex dai and Bishal dai; two older sisters, Bhavana didi and Ragini didi; four younger sisters, Asmita, Ayushma, Dipshika, and Sidiksha; one younger brother, Rajiv.

This doesn't even include all the cousins of my cousins (hi Sriyog! Anushree! Shreeya didi!). Or cousins of those cousins. Or children of parents' friends. Or children of neighbors, friends, grandma's dad's brother's child's relatives. No, I'm being serious. At the hospital, my mom was recognized by her roommate: my grandma's dad's brother's cousin.

Nepal is a small world. Everyone's family here. (This last line was courtesy of Asmita).

BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE.

Okay, this post wasn't supposed to be about me freaking out over the fact that I have brothers. (Although it sorta is. A bit. But seriously. They're amazing. I KNEW I had older brothers.) This post is about the awe-inspiring bond that's here, something I wish we had in America.

Families get together for bhojs (feasts), parties, and just random surprise visits all the time. And it's not just family on either side, mom's and dad's. No, family from my mom AND dad's sides get together and rely on each other and take care of each other. Finding out that Alex dai (my dad's nephew) is in such close contact with my mom's brother surprised me so much. But that's just how close and interconnected everybody is here.

This ohana impacted me the most when my mom had to be hospitalized.

She got a Urinary Tract Infection, same as last year, due to E.coli in something she ate/drank. Last year, she was able to get by with home rest and antibiotics, but this year, after three days straight of a fever over 102 F, we had to rush her to the hospital.

This was the first time she had stayed overnight in the hospital, and it unfortunately happened to be the same day that my dad left for the US again. If my dad was here, he could stay in the hospital, take care of her, keep her company, but he was gone. My aunt and uncle were busy with work, and I couldn't drive here (I wouldn't dare to--I'll show you guys in the next post).

But our family was there for us. Everyday and every night, someone would be there with my mom when I couldn't be, from my other aunts and uncles, to my grandparents, and aunt's grandparents, and cousins, and people just completely non blood-related to her. My dad's brother Binod tau-ba (uncle) even stayed overnight, trying his best to sleep on the small cot in the room.

Everybody brought food. Joula (rice porridge), soup, rice, daal (lentil soup), chicken, crackers, cookies, nuts, hot water, clothes, fruits; there was no shortage of food.

I would spend the days with her, but Mama wouldn't let me spend the night, for fear that all the stress would get me sick too. At night, I would return back home to my aunt and uncle's home in Sitapaila, and try my best to sleep before the next day. But I needn't have worried. Even before I got there, there would be at least two people sitting and chatting with her, distracting her from her painful IV and saline drip.

My mom was so embarrassed and felt so needy to have so many people taking time out of their busy days to come watch after her, especially at night, but my aunt summed it up best. "If your family can't even do this much for you, who will?" After all, it's our family that has our back when we're sick, or down, and need help. They'll always be there for us.

Man, I have SO MANY AMAZING PICTURES of my freaking beautiful family but I don't want to post them because...ya'know...stalkers.

Well, kind of. (That's a story for a different day). But also the fact that it's probably illegal to post someone's picture without their consent, and I don't want to do that to anyone who doesn't want it. The Internet is a scary place.


I'm a mess. I'm leaving in five days and I've made, what, five posts? I'm a disappointment.

I won't be able to update either because we're going to Chyasal for the next three days (my mom's family's home), and there's no wifi there.

I'll try though.

See y'all soon. Big hugs.