My Uncles

I have two uncles from my father’s side. They were significantly a few years younger than my father and the three of them, prior to my father’s marriage to his second wife, were very close.

After my father’s death, my siblings would have dinner with the whole family including my two uncles a few times annually.

I love my uncles. When I was little, I enjoyed their company very much. They share a lot of traits with my father – they were soft spoken yet stern at the same time and highly passionate about their careers in accountancy and medicine. Yep, one is a banker, another an accountant and the youngest is a surgeon.

Smell any artistic creativity there? *Sniff sniff* Not me. Hehe.

But I love them anyway. Despite some awkwardness between us, I can feel their affections for my family. They have their own problems to worry about yet they provide me with a sense of security that even when everything else in my life has fallen apart, I could always count on them for help.

Nevertheless, things have changed.

After my father passed away, the dynamics of my relationship with them changed. Not on their part, that’s for sure. They have been more caring and attentive than ever. It’s just me. And my stupid spoilt heart calling out for affections from my dead father. I miss my father so much that seeing my uncles’ faces remind me of him. How they would sit together – the three of them – and discuss about life.

Thus, it has reached the level where every time I see their faces, I see my father. And the things that I have missed about my father. They have told us that, now that our father has died, they are now our fathers. I know they are trying to make us feel better. But it does not mean that I feel better. For the clear fact is that they are somebody else’s fathers and mine has passed away. My heart is repelled towards the notion - the word 'father' seems to hold a very special place now. A sensitive place guarded by my grieving emotions. For now, the place is empty. Staring into that place, it is hollow with nothingness after the passing of the previous occupier. "Who can replace him?" I thought for a while and decided that yup, let me be my own father, my own captain in my own ship.

It is my fault that I have now felt this way. It is also a fault that I can neither abandoned nor ignore.As for now, they remain as uncles, my late father’s brothers whom I respect and am fond of. Maybe one day, I am able to crush the wall that I built between me and my uncles – to finally deem them as a fatherly part of my life, to talk to them like a how a daughter would, to seek them for advice and to let them shine a guiding light in my life.