"A dReAmEd Childhood"

How many people are lucky enough to have their grandparents still in their lives? Not so many right?
I am one of the lucky ones to have both of my grandparents still with me. Not only this, but I have the most amazing grandparents ever! They are no regular old fashioned and boring grandparents, no no no! If you were thinking about the type of grandparents who stay at home and read books and never go out you've got my grandparents wrong. I also have the most amazing aunts, uncles and cousins; all of which I still manage to stay in contact with also.

Growing up, I would say I probably had the dream childhood. I was close to all members of my family, and family life really made up a big part of my life. Christmas, weekends and holidays were always spent with the entire family, which made room for so much fun and memorable moments. The good thing about our family is that every day that we spend together is a day where things are special. I got to share with every single one of them and enjoyed the time with my cousins, especially the one that was closest in age with me.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about these reunions was the amount of things that one could talk about and just really having fun knowing that these were people who were always going to be in your life and who cared about you. We always played jokes on each other and there were fights (what do you expect? this is not fantasy! plus... there are hormones involved since we were mostly all in our teens!) but we always got over it really fast.





Its like every week it was something to look forward to, its like having Disney World every week, its how it felt. I enjoyed just every single moment, where we would just sit around the table and talk about what was happening with all of us and the great things that had happened throughout the week. The "grown-ups" would always take over the conversation and the "kids" would always say a couple of things and then go to have their own conversations. The girls would go somewhere to talk and usually the boys went to play some kind of video game or play outside. We were divided like that most of the times, but managed to come across certain moments where we would all end up in the pool playing games we made up.

When I moved to Manila, after living in Dominican Republic for most of my life the one thing that was hard was leaving them and the rest of my family. For some reason when I mention family people assume I am speaking of my parents and siblings but fail to understand that when I say my family I mean my entire family (including aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, close friends, etc). And leaving them to come to Manila was one of the hardest things I have had to do.

I was used to seeing them at least two times a week, and when I came here the one thing I was scared about was not being able to communicate with them. Everything turned out perfectly though, my grandparents turned into technological grandparents and created accounts for everything (skype, facebook, gmail, etc). So, I still talk to them and can send my hellos every once in a while. My aunts and uncles also created skype accounts where we can always keep in touch. And well... my cousins and I have facebook, msn, gmail, hotmail, yahoo, oovoo, etc to make things easier for us to communicate. I don't talk to my cousins as often but when I do, we manage to just go right back where we were before. Its as if growing up has not affected the love and care we have for one another.

Memories like going to the mountains with my family, to the beach or just to a simple restaurant on a weekend are things that I treasure greatly and that I would never for anything. Things that are invaluable to the person that I have become today. Leaving just made me realize even more how important each and every single member of my family is to me, and it just showed me the importance in my life even today when I am at such a long distance from them.

The memories of my childhood are memories that I will never forget. Things were not perfect and they will never be but they were perfect in my mind. When I think back, I think of all the things that made up my week from the fights to the laughs and I look at every single part of it with a smile on my face. Memories and experiences that I will never forget and will keep me company for the rest of my life, people who I will be able to look up to forever because they are all the example of the people I want to become.

People and places I will never forget, and who are a part of me until today...