The Growth of a Forest

Introduction

Dear diary,

I realized that I never fully introduced myself.

I'm Flora. 

I grew up all over the place. I lived in China until I was about 4 or 5 years old. I then moved to Ontario, Canada (it's a province, not a city) to attend kindergarten. I also spent grades 1-3 in Ontario, though at multiple primary schools. I then was sent back to China for two years to learn Chinese. I went to grade 2 and 4 there, consecutively, because my Chinese was atrocious when I first came back and I had to catch up/skip grades to catch up to kids my age.

My dad is a dean at a hospital in China. I don't see him often. My mom's a dental hygienist in that small city in Canada, I lived with her and my little brother until I moved to the east coast for college. When I was small, I didn't see my parents often. My mom was always away on business trips and so was my dad. So my aunt and grandma raised me. I don't talk to them often anymore.

I used to think that my family was harmonious and loving. Except for mom and dad, who always fought a lot when they were together. I remember being really sick one time and watching them fight in front of the TV. I was so overwhelmed (and maybe annoyed) that I screamed myself hoarse at them to stop. They stopped, but my dad had already thrown the TV remote on the ground-- it broke.

It turns out the rest of my family wasn't very loving either towards each other. My dad's older sister is a widow, she helped take care of me with my grandma when I was studying in China. She loved dressing me up like a doll, doing elaborate hairdos and making me wear dresses. She loved to sing songs in the kitchen while she cooked. I thought her voice was just as pretty as those of the singers I heard on TV. My dad's younger sister lives less than half an hour away from my aunt and grandma, with her husband and daughter. She's the bratty one, according to my older aunt, always being pampered by my grandma because she was the youngest of the 3 siblings. My older aunt doesn't like her because she thinks her younger sister is always wasting money on creature comforts and being selfish. My father once gave my cousin a large sum of money for her college tuition, but found out later on that my younger aunt and uncle had spent that money on buying a new apartment instead. He was furious. But I was too young to make much sense of it back then.

I love my older aunt, she was a second mother to me. But she gossips a lot. Too much. She also tells me the same things over and over again each time (cue story about my younger aunt wasting her daughter's university tuition). She's also a bit bitter and feels underappreciated by the family. "I've taken care of you when you were studying here and I've taken care of your grandmother for the past decade. Why doesn't anyone appreciate what I've done for the family?" She's far from perfect, but I can understand her angst and love her anyways.

I guess this is how life works. You love a person not because you can't see their imperfections. You love them because you understand them and can empathize with them. I'm grateful to my aunt for having taken such good care of me during my pre-pubescent, bratty years. I will always remember her trying to entice me with new dishes, as I was a picky eater. I will always remember her comforting presence at night, when I lay by her side and thought about how scary the dark was.