fascinating family

My parents went to the Philippines to rebuild the family home. There has been much tenuous discussions between the siblings about what to do with the land and house there especially since many of them are here with their own houses and issues. The cousins have watched them banter and argue, get pissed off and storm off, break off meetings, while siblings politic each other to come to some sort of consensus. Everyone gets a say along with all their husbands and wives. You can imagine.

I'm not quite sure how they came to agreement, but it happened some time around our wedding in October. I think it was uncle's cardboard mockup of how the land could be divided, a central family home with a moat, er, I think it was a talapia pond surrounding the house with a grid layout like a Las Vegas subdivision. The uncle with the cardboard mock up can be a bit of daydreamer, he's into passing out sheets of paper with the ten commandments and John 3:16 quotes (uncle has always been his own church), but he can be brilliant at times. The siblings joked and laughed over the mock up, imagining life surrounded by a moat.

The family homestead was getting difficult to manage with 12 siblings. A few of their uncles and cousins live on the land. Often they would say they would get "permission" from someone to build a house there, but none of the siblings would fess up to ever giving said permission and the accusations and the distrust would grow.

In the end, inspired by the subdivisions, they decided to divvy it up in equal parcels amongst the siblings. There would be a few community property areas: a central tilapia pond, the family house, and the houses built for the designated caretakers. And as the usual distribution of goods goes, they drew lots. They've always agreed there's nothing more fairer than the luck of the draw and that the order of drawing will always be from oldest to youngest.

I've become fascinated at how the family functions. How the siblings find a way out of their arguments and grumblings to well remain together. It's really an astounding feat.

One thing is for sure, there's always laughter. When someone gets a bit too dour to continue to communicate, another will try to bring in a bit of laughter to break them out of it. Or when it's bad they'll decide to disagree for now, and come back later. And the majority does rule. They don't all always agree. But in the end, no one has broken off so far to continue to refuse to do what the majority rules. Each of them even with their own families to tend to still believes in "the family". It's a value our grandmother instilled in them. Even til her death she looked to reconcile riffs with her own brothers, which they did at her funeral. (well, they kind of had to becuase their children wheeled them next to each other and left them there til they had to talk to each other. I don't know if it was age or memory or both, but they figured out they had forgotten why they were so pissed off in the first place.) It's a value that is sometimes hard on their spouses.

They drew lots on Sunday for the various parcels. The parcel map was passed around as they argued about where the largest mango trees were and which parcels they wanted the most. Something about how the ones on the road were most valuable, but in the end each seemed to have gotten the parcel that they had been eyeing. Some of the siblings have already decided that they will go home in their old age. One uncle has already completed his home on his lot.

Our grandfather had consolidated the land from his uncles and aunts, allowed them to live on the land til the end of their lives. His children have now divided it. It's the nature of things to consolidate, then separate, then consolidate again. Who knows what will happen with my generation. How many of us will want to continue to go back, contribute to a home most of us only visit every few years. Will we even remember how we are connected to this community? Nor care if we were.

Others plan to stay in the family home with the screen windows, electricity and aircon, and live out their farmer fantasies on their parcels, plant fruit trees and a put up a nipa hut. I wonder if mom would let me plant one of those sky high native forrest trees or maybe narra or mahoghany. In 10 years they could chop a few down to make hardwood floors for their houses. Land is like that, a grand canvas to paint one's dreams.