rebonding

By Kathy N

Being the oldest sibling, it’s hard to find comfort in any of my siblings. Having to assist them when they don’t listen, it’s frustrating. With my cousin Jasmine Nguyen, it was different. It felt as if the roles were swapped where I was the younger sibling and she was the older sibling I sometimes wished I had.

Growing up with my cousin for part of my childhood was an experience I will never forget. We spent our time together, basically growing up together even when there was a 7 year gap between us.

I remember her taking me with her to spend time with her friends, even playing at home with me when she wasn’t busy doing schoolwork. I loved spending time with her and I still do to this day.

We eventually all moved out of our combined home. My cousin, her mom, and our grandpa moved away together while my parents, me, and two younger siblings lived together. That is when a somewhat tradition started in the family.

Every Saturday we could go over to my Aunt’s house (Jasmine’s mom). I spent my time there with my brothers and my cousins. I never knew it then, but the visit was initially to spend time with my grandpa instead of my cousin Jasmine. As I got older, our visits started to end.

Eventually, we stopped visiting altogether after my grandpa went back to Vietnam when I was in 3rd to 4th grade. I later found out the reason our weekly visits on Saturday ended was because of my grandpa. Our purpose for going over to my Aunt’s house was to spend time with our grandpa instead of spending time with our cousins.

The relationship between me and my cousin Jasmine started to thin after that. We didn’t speak much to each other after the visits stopped. Ever so rarely did we go over to their house (her and her mom's house) and as time went, I missed it.

At some point, we reached the line of not talking at all for a while, and that continued even while I entered 7th grade until some point during quarantine.

During quarantine, it was a hard time for me with issues at home. I felt so alone. With the wifi being turned off because of my brother’s grades and what was happening between my parents, I felt like crying so often but always held it in.

At some point, our dad turned off the wifi for a couple of days because of one of my brother's grades. He called my cousin Jasmine on the phone and asked her to talk some sense into us.

The call left me and my brother in tears with her trying to calm my dad and get to a point of understanding of the stress we were facing with our family issues as well as school. The call was the first time in a while that we had talked since our last visit to her house months ago, and it brought relief to me to have someone to talk to about my issues at home.

From that point on, me and my cousin started talking again. I started asking her for help with things from time to time, like with schoolwork or even talking about how we were doing so far. Even sometimes, she takes me shopping with her or every now and then gets boba for me.

My cousin Jasmine is someone I am glad to say is the cousin I am closest to. I am grateful for her guidance and support from her when I was facing a hard time in my life and am also grateful our bond strengthened again during that time as well.

She is the older sister I always wanted at times and even if she doesn’t know it, I can say in full confidence, she is the sister that I had always wanted and she is someone very important to me. She is still to this day.

For The Warrior Times, this is Kathy Nguyen.